Mr. Shiva Rajaraman

Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Shiva Rajaraman is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NIIF Infrastructure Finance Limited (NIIF IFL). He has over 26 years of experience in infrastructure finance, innovative & sustainable funding, and advisory.

In his previous role as founder CEO & Wholetime Director of L&T Infra Debt Fund Limited (L&T IDF), one of India’s leading Infrastructure Debt Funds (IDF) with an excellent quality asset base, he built and led a top-notch team in introducing innovative financing and credit enhancement solutions to PPP projects in renewable energy, roads, and transmission sectors. The L&T IDF team was able to procure bond & equity investor funding from key national and international investor groups including long term focussed pension/ provident/ insurance funds. At L&T Financial Services (LTFS), he was part of the leadership team which managed one of India’s largest (USD ~ 3 bn) high quality debt-financed renewable energy portfolios aggregating ~ 6000 MW and one of the largest quality road refinance portfolios.

Shiva is a member of the Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee (IMSC) of the Government of India, set up for implementation of the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP). He has been a member of several expert groups and national committees, including the Project Finance Sub-Group for the NIP and the Expert Group constituted by the Ministry of Finance for guiding rating agencies to developing a new framework for rating infrastructure projects. He has also been a member of Infrastructure Committees of CII, FICCI, IVCA (industry associations) and a Director on the Board of Feedback Infrastructure (a leading infrastructure services company) and Indian Highway Management Company Ltd (IHMCL), a company promoted by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) along with other institutions, which has implemented electronic tolling solutions in India.

Prior to joining L&T Financial Services, he worked with India’s specialised infrastructure financier IDFC (now IDFC Bank) for nearly 10 years, in various positions in Project Finance and Risk. He started his career with the Equity Group of Dresdner Kleinwort Benson (now Commerzbank).

Shiva is an established subject matter expert and trainer in the field of infrastructure finance. He has a passion for teaching and conducts training programs for young professionals, senior government and RBI officials. He has a keen interest in history and enjoys playing chess.

Shiva holds a Bachelors’ degree in Commerce from Loyola College, Chennai, and an MBA from Bharathidasan Institute of Management, Tiruchirappalli, India.

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Mr. Debabrata Mukherjee

Chief Business Officer

Debabrata joined the Company in August 2015. He is primarily responsible for business development, fund raising, overseeing the evaluation and delivery of investment and credit proposals and portfolio performance.

In a career spanning over 29 years in financial services, Debabrata has worked with leading Indian and global institutions across corporate and project finance, special situation investments, advisory services and investment banking. He has worked on all forms of capital - debt, mezzanine and equity and has been involved in evaluating, advising, structuring and funding of projects with capital outlay of over US$ 10 billion. In his previous role, Debabrata was a Senior Director in the project finance business of IDFC Ltd. where he led debt and structured investments across diverse sectors in the infrastructure domain including transport, social infrastructure, hospitality, industrial and commercial real estate. He also worked on special situation investments and corporate advisory transactions in IDFC, advising infrastructure developers in power, transport and telecom sectors on business plan and investment opportunities, bidding for PPP projects, risk mitigation and financial structuring. Prior to joining IDFC, Debabrata worked in the areas of corporate finance and investment banking and held key positions in ASK Raymond James, BNP Paribas and SBI Capital Markets. He led and managed transactions for several Indian business houses and multinational clients across a wide range of products spanning M&A, equity and debt capital markets and structured finance. Debabrata holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

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Mr. Dhananjay Yellurkar

Chief Risk Officer

Dhananjay joined the company in January 2016. He is the Chief Risk Officer of the company and responsible for developing and implementing NIIF IFL’s risk management framework, ensuring a sound risk awareness culture and monitoring the risk management activities in the company, in order to build and safeguard a healthy portfolio of infrastructure project assets. He has over three decades of experience in the financial services sector with leading institutions in India in the areas of risk management, project finance and advisory services.

Before moving into his current role, Dhananjay was Head – Risk and Asset Monitoring Group at L&T Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd. and was responsible for overseeing the risk function for the wholesale finance platform of L&T Financial Services. Prior to his 5 year stint with L&T Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd., Dhananjay held key positions in the areas of infrastructure advisory and corporate finance with CRISIL Risk & Infrastructure Solutions Limited, Ernst &Young and ICICI Ltd. Dhananjay holds a Master in Business Administration degree from Northeastern University, Boston and a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics & Communications Engineering from Karnataka University, Dharwad.

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Mr. Srinivas Upadhyayula

Chief Compliance Officer and General Counsel

Srinivas Upadhyayula is presently the Head Legal, Compliance and Secretarial of NIIF Infrastructure Financial Limited. Prior to this assignment Srinivas has worked as a Senior Director (Legal & Compliance) in the Special Situations Management Group (SSMG) of IDFC Ltd. Srinivas has more than 30 years of rich experience in legal, documentation of project & non-project finance, corporate finance and infrastructure finance documentation, including litigation management & recovery management in the Banking and Financial sector. He is having expertise in leading the delinquent accounts, recovery planning and in regular reviewing of the non-performing assets of the loan portfolio to identify trends and significant changes for effective recovery and financial restructuring and a structuring of the loans.

Prior to IDFC Limited, Srinivas was working with Asset Reconstruction Company (India) Ltd (Arcil) (the first Asset Reconstruction Company established in India and is a prominent player in the Distressed Assets) as Senior Vice-president & Group Head – Legal.

Srinivas started his career as an Advocate on Civil and Labour side in the District Courts of Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam. He then worked with Sterling Tree Magnum (India) Ltd (a Sterling group company), and as Law officer in Canara Bank & as Deputy General Manager (Legal) IDBI Bank Ltd.

He has completed his Bachelor of Laws with specialisation in Company Law and Banking Law from Andhra University. He has completed post graduate diploma in Industrial Relation and Personnel Management from Bharatiya Vidyabhavan. He has also completed his CAIIB.

His interests include tracking the stock market & reading of various magazines and articles on litigation.

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V. Narayanan Iyer

Chief Financial Officer

V. Narayanan joined NIIF IFL on 16th September 2021. He is a finance professional with over 25 years of work experience across diverse organizations & sectors. He has more than 15 years of Leadership & Management experience in creating financial systems, robust internal controls, sound GRC - Governance, Compliance & Risk Management framework.

He has supported scaling up & enabling new businesses rollout, initiated change management & productivity/efficiency improvements in growing organizations. A good technological bent of mind helps him in focusing on automation & streamlining processes. He also has a keen eye for detail with good experience in business planning, financial reporting, budgeting & P&L management.

Before joining NIIF IFL, he served as the CFO of Piramal Foundation for more than four years. His prior experiences include six years with IDFC limited as Senior Director – Finance wherein he was responsible for financial control, reporting, audit, treasury, and loan Operations. Prior to IDFC Ltd, He worked in Deutsche Bank for more than nine years and his last title was Joint Controller – India for the Deutsche Bank group operations across India.

He is a postgraduate in Commerce (M. Com) . He is also an associate member of the Institute of Cost Accountants of India and Institute of Company Secretaries of India.

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