Padmanabh Sinha
ED & CIO – Private Equity, National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) and Ex-Chairperson, IVCA
Padmanabh (Paddy) is a veteran of the Indian investing ecosystem with a proven track record of building out leading institutions and businesses in India. He has over 25 years of work experience, primarily in private equity investments since 2002, and also as an early tech entrepreneur in India. His investment experience spans across sectors including consumer, industrial, technology, business services , and financial services. He joined NIIF in 2021 as Executive Director and CIO – Private Equity and is based in Mumbai. At NIIF, he leads the private equity investment business and manages the Strategic Opportunities Fund, presently the largest India-focused private equity fund.
Prior to joining NIIF, he spent almost a decade with Tata Group’s flagship private equity fund, the Tata Opportunities Fund, as its Managing Partner and co-founder. He was instrumental in raising the fund successfully in 2013 at ~USD 600 million with investments from marquee global investors, making it the then largest India focused PE fund. In his long and prolific career span, he was elected as the Chairman of the Indian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (IVCA) from 2018-2020. IVCA is the apex industry association with more than 100 VC and PE members of both Indian and global origin.
Paddy was the Managing Director – India for Temasek where he co-founded and co-led the India office during its successful build-out phase in India. In his stint with Temasek between 2004-2011, Paddy consummated investments over USD 1.5 billion in India, and additionally led large international projects, including Temasek’s entry into life insurance investments globally. Prior to Temasek, he was Vice President – Investments with ICICI Ventures.
Padmanabh was an early tech entrepreneur in India and was one of the founding members of eGurucool.com, an Ed-tech business focused on online and hybrid Test prep for Grade 9- 12. He successfully raised significant capital for the business to invest into content & marketing from ChrysCapital, NewsCorp and IFC and eventually sold it to NIIT before starting his direct investing career. Paddy started his professional career journey with a JP Morgan-ICICI investment banking joint venture in 1995.
Padmanabh holds a Bachelor in Engineering degree Computer Science from BITS, Pilani, and is an MBA from IIM, Calcutta. He completed an Executive Development Course in Late Stage Private Equity from Harvard Business School in 2003. He has held several board positions with organisations of repute such as Tata Sky, Varroc Engineering, Bharti Infratel, Tata Projects, Temasek Holdings Advisors (India), Arvind Brands to name a few.