Associated with CARE Ratings since 2000, Mehul Pandya took over as the Interim CEO of the company in June 2022, after serving as an Executive Director since 2017. Over the years, Mr Pandya has successfully incubated and nurtured the company’s business in India and abroad. He is a member of the Board of Directors for all subsidiaries of CARE Ratings while also serving on the Board of the Association of Credit Rating Agencies in Asia (ACRAA). A technocrat with a management background, Mr Pandya is the Chairman of the Special Projects and Publications Committee and Co-Chairman of the Training and Programs Committee of ACRAA. He is a CFA charter holder from CFA Institute, USA. Over the years, he has attended various leadership programmes at IIMA and the High Potentials Leadership Programme at Harvard Business School as well. Prior to joining CARE Ratings, he worked with a state-level financial institution in Gujarat for about four years and was instrumental in setting up an in-house credit rating cell for the screening of lending proposals. He has worked as a Consultant for the Asian Development Bank and conducted various training programmes on credit risk analysis in India and abroad.

Sachin Gupta serves as the Chief Rating Officer and Executive Director at CARE Ratings. With over 22 years of experience in leadership positions across the credit rating business, Mr Gupta brings with him in-depth knowledge of credit ratings across sectors including infrastructure, financial services and corporate sector. Prior to joining CARE Ratings, he worked as a Senior Director at CRISIL and managed the corporate and infrastructure ratings. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering, and an MBA in Finance from the Faculty of Management Studies, New Delhi.

An all-India merit rank holder Chartered Accountant and Cost Accountant, Revati Kasture currently serves as a Senior Director at CARE Ratings. From handling the research wing of the company to now heading the Criteria and Quality Control team, Ms Kasture has been responsible for strengthening methodologies as well as objectivity in ratings provided by the company. She took the initiative to create and implement a central data infrastructure with the digitisation of workflow. In her 23 years of work experience, she has been honoured with the Professional Achiever-Woman award by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India in December 2011 and recognised as one of India’s top 100 “Women In Finance” in the Leading Category in March 2019. Passionate about teaching, she is also on the Advisory Board of Symbiosis Institute of Banking and Finance, Pune.

Rajani has nearly two decades of experience in the field of macro-economic research. Before joining CareEdge, she was the Chief Economist and Head of Research at Knight Frank. She has also worked with top institutions such as Aditya Birla Group, Kotak Bank and J M Morgan Stanley. Actively devoted to demystifying the financial world, she regularly writes opinion pieces for business dailies on varied economic issues and occasionally delivers lectures at educational institutions. She is an alumna of Delhi School of Economics and Lady Shri Ram College.

Nehal Shah, who has been named in the “Top 10 Chief Compliance Officers in India in 2020” list of CEO Insights Magazine, currently serves as the Head of Compliance, Legal and Secretarial at CARE Ratings. In her career of 18 years so far, she has also acquired expertise in areas of Secretarial, Compliance, legal, audit, corporate governance management, restructuring and strategic planning. Before joining CARE Ratings, she was the Head of Compliance, Legal & Company Secretary at YES Asset Management (India) Ltd. She has worked in global and domestic conglomerates such as Deutsche Bank Group, Fidelity India, and Aditya Birla Group. Recognised for her excellence in the category of ‘Best Leading Lawyers of 2022’ by the World Intellectual Property Forum, Ms. Shah holds a bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Mumbai University, Associate Company Secretary from the Institute of Company Secretaries of India, LLB from Mumbai University, and post-graduation in Securities Law from Government Law College, Mumbai. She is also a visiting faculty at various institutes such as NISM, GLC Law College, and Compliance Academy.

An accomplished professional with over 20 years of experience in financial management, corporate accounting, IFRS, compliance and tax operations, Jinesh Shah currently serves as the Chief Financial Officer at CARE Ratings. Prior to this, he was the head of finance and accounts at India Ratings and Research Private Limited (Fitch Ratings). He has also worked with organisations such as Bramha Group of Companies (US based investment fund), Hypo Real Estate Capital India Private Limited (German based NBFC -Part of Hypo Real Estate Holding AG), ICICI Bank Limited, and Cornelius and Davar. Mr Shah, a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, holds a bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Mumbai University and IFRS certification from ICAI.

An accomplished professional with three decades of experience, Aniruddha Sen serves as the Chief Human Resources Officer at CareEdge. He has spent 20 years with Citibank in HR leadership roles, including HR Head for Corporate & Investment Bank, HR Head for Consumer Bank, Head of Rewards etc. Before joining us, he was engaged with a start-up as the Chief Business Officer. Aniruddha brings to the fore, knowledge, and skills across a gamut of functions including business partnership, leadership development, compensation and benefits, employee relations, performance and talent management, HR transformation, organisation design and re-engineering among others. In his previous roles, he has successfully spearheaded complex projects from a people, technological as well as commercial standpoints. Aniruddha is a TISS alumnus of 1992 and started his career with Siemens. He has also worked with Castrol (L&D Head) and HSBC (Head of Rewards & Employee Relations).

A graduate from Mithibai College and an MBA from KJ Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research, University of Mumbai, Nadir Bhalwani currently serves as the Chief Information & Technology Officer at CARE Ratings. With over 21 years of experience at top institutions, Nadir is a Certified Information Security Auditor (CISA) from ISACA and has completed the Global CIO Certification – Executive Program from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. Before joining CareEdge, he was working with Entertainment Network (India) Ltd. as the Head of Information Technology & Business Process Reengineering. Awarded the Top 100 CISO India award from CISO Platform for three consecutive years starting 2014, Nadir has held leadership positions in Technology at top institutions such as CRISIL (a Standard & Poor company) and IL&FS Investsmart. A prominent speaker at various forums such as Gartner Symposium, IDG, ISACA Annual Conference, he also regularly writes articles and gives his views to the print media and online technology journals.

An analytics leader with experience in the US, UK, UAE, and India, Kiran Surve currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer at CARE Risk Solutions, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CARE Ratings. His diversified experience of over 27 years has seen him acquire expertise in areas of advanced analytics risk and fraud solutions compliance such as GDPR, regulatory reporting, Basel, BCBS 239, IFRS, AML, fraud, EWS, and risk-based authentication. Before joining CARE Risk Solutions, Mr Surve was associated with Wipro as Risk and Compliance Head - BFSI and Analytics Large Programme Director Global Partner – Data and AI. An MBA from Southern New Hampshire University, he also holds a Bachelor’s in Engineering and QDA specialisation from IIM-Ahmedabad.

Sushmita is a project finance, project advisory, structured finance, ESG and credit rating specialist with over 19 years of experience in sectors such as roads and highways, ports, real estate, urban and municipal infrastructure development, education, healthcare, concessions and public-private partnerships. She has financed, rated and advised award-winning and pathfinder infrastructure projects, working with investors, sponsors and developers, the public sector, central and local governments and multilateral agencies. Prior to joining Care Advisory Research and Training Limited, she was associated with CRISIL where she was a part of the large corporates rating team covering credits in sectors including roads, construction and real estate. Sushmita holds a B.Tech Degree in Electronics from Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute, Mumbai, and has a Master of Management degree from IIT School of Management, Mumbai.

Tushar Shah has more than 15 years of experience in project, corporate and structured finance. He has undertaken assignments encompassing industry, business, policy and regulatory framework and credit risk assessment for corporates and infrastructure projects across sectors such as consumer, auto, IT, retail, telecom, EPC, oil & gas, ports, airports, roads, logistics, mining and power. Tushar is also experienced in designing credit enhancement structures for state government enterprises and infrastructure projects including homogenous pool structures, and restricted groups. Before joining CareEdge, Tushar worked with Adani Group as part of their Group Corporate Finance team. He has also worked with CRISIL Ratings in their Large Corporate Ratings Division, Max Life Insurance as part of the Equity Research team on the buy-side and at D. E. Shaw & Co. as an analyst. Tushar holds a B.Sc. (Hons) in Chemistry from Saint Xavier’s College, the University of Calcutta; an MBA from the Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi and an ex-PGDBM from Emeritus Institute of Management, Singapore. He has also completed the CFA program of the CFA Institute, US.

Saurav Chatterjee, CARE Ratings Africa’s Director and CEO since March 2016, is a seasoned credit professional with over 18 years of strong technical and analytical knowledge in corporate and business risk management, project viability evaluation and grooming analysts in making sound credit decisions. Associated with the CareEdge group for a major part of his career, Mr. Chatterjee has also had a stint in corporate banking at Standard Chartered Bank. Mr. Chatterjee has been instrumental in popularising the concept of Credit Rating in Mauritius and enlightened bankers, financial institutions and corporates on the significance and benefits of credit rating and its impact on reducing the cost of borrowings thereby helping them use Basel guidelines effectively to secure capital reliefs and reduce their cost of funds after assessing risk-return trade-off. Mr. Chatterjee has direct oversight in the rating of all corporates, banks and financial institutions in Mauritius and interacts regularly with their senior management. He is a member of the Rating Committee of CRAF and was a member of the Internal Rating Committee of CARE Ratings Limited for a fairly long period. He has made presentations to the regulators of various African countries on credit risk management. He was also instrumental in obtaining a credit rating license for CRAF in Kenya from the Kenyan regulators. Apart from his various functional roles and responsibilities, Mr. Chatterjee has also been an accomplished trainer and mentor for young professionals not only within the financial industry but also for students across various professional institutes, leading B- Schools and bankers in various countries in Asia and Africa, including Central bankers on credit rating concepts and credit risk management skills. Mr. Chatterjee is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) from the CFA Institute, India and holds an MBA in Finance from the ICFAI Business School.

Achin Nirwani is the CEO of CARE Ratings Nepal. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from the University of Punjab, Chandigarh, and is a qualified Chartered Accountant from The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. A dynamic professional with more than 18 years of experience in the credit rating, banking and financial sector, he has been associated with CARE Ratings Limited, India, for the major part of his career. Prior to joining CARE Ratings, Mr. Nirwani was associated with leading banks and corporate houses in various capacities. He has also undertaken assignments with various departments of the government of India for developing the methodologies of grading education institutions for skill development, financial and operating efficiency rating for MSME etc. During these years of his association with financial institutions, he has handled responsibilities in the areas of credit risk assessment, project appraisal, relationship, and people management. With his extensive experience in the banking and finance sector, he comes with a spectrum of knowledge in credit analysis and its mapping to business, financial and industry risk.