Brands
Verlinvest taps Amit Aggarwal to power early-growth bets in India
MUMBAI: Verlinvest has strengthened its India play by appointing Amit Aggarwal to lead its early-growth investment strategy in the country, a move that signals sharper focus on writing cheques in the $5 to $20 million range. The global consumer-focused investment firm, which manages more than €2 billion, is now gearing up to accelerate activity in India’s booming consumer ecosystem.
Amit joins Verlinvest with more than 15 years of experience across venture capital, technology, strategy and operations. He was most recently principal at Elevation Capital, where he backed emerging consumer tech startups across social, commerce, edtech, content, proptech and travel. His portfolio includes Atlys, Seekho and SolarSquare. His career also spans leadership roles at Meta, a stint as entrepreneur-in-residence at Hero Electronix where he helped build Qubo, and six years at Bain and Company advising private equity and tech clients.
Verlinvest managing director and head of Asia Arjun Anand, said Amit’s blend of operator and investor experience will be pivotal as the firm sharpens its early-growth focus. He noted that Verlinvest aims to deploy an average of $200 million annually in India as consumer brands continue to scale rapidly.
Amit said he was excited to join an investor known for its long-term approach to building category-shaping brands. He added that he looks forward to partnering with founders driving the next wave of consumer innovation and supporting them with capital, insight and operational depth at a crucial stage in their growth.
Verlinvest has been active in India since 2010 and has backed more than 25 consumer companies including Epigamia, Veeba, Purplle, Wakefit and Lahori. The firm plans to make 10 to 15 investments each year across early-growth and growth stages as it expands its presence in one of the world’s most dynamic consumer markets.
Brands
YES Bank appoints S Anantharaman as chief risk officer
Former Jio Financial Services group chief risk officer takes charge of enterprise-wide risk at the embattled private lender
MUMBAI: YES Bank is not taking chances with risk anymore. The private lender has appointed S Anantharaman as its chief risk officer, a hire that signals the bank’s continued effort to rebuild credibility and tighten the controls that once famously slipped.
Anantharaman arrives from Jio Financial Services, where he served as group chief risk officer and built a risk management architecture spanning lending, payments, insurance broking and asset management from the ground up. Before that, he held the chief risk officer role at Bank of Baroda and senior leadership positions at HDFC Bank and L&T Finance Holdings. Three decades in banking and financial services, in other words, with scars and qualifications to match. He is a chartered accountant and a CFA charterholder.
At YES Bank, his brief is considerable. Anantharaman will oversee the bank’s entire enterprise-wide risk framework, covering credit policy, market risk, operational risk, information security, data governance, analytics, model governance and data privacy. It is, in short, every lever that matters when a bank is trying to prove it has grown up.
YES Bank’s turbulent past needs little rehearsing. What it needs now is exactly what Anantharaman has spent thirty years building: the kind of risk culture that stops problems before they become headlines. The appointment suggests the bank knows it.
