Domain Experts
Dr Bandi Ram Prasad is a PhD in Economics with 26 years of professional experience in banking and securities markets. He held senior management positions such as Chief Economist—Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), Chief General Manager and Chief Knowledge Officer—Bombay Stock Exchange Ltd. (BSE), and Principal Consultant—Dun and Bradstreet (D&B) Information Services India Pvt. Ltd.
As the Chief Knowledge Officer at BSE, Dr Prasad developed BSE Training as a leading facility in financial and securities markets training that became an important source of research, training, and skill development for a large number of professionals from India and abroad. He held consulting assignments for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Asia Pacific Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (Thailand) and represented BSE as a member in the working committees of World Federation of Exchanges, Asia Oceanic Federation of Exchanges, and South Asian Federation of Exchanges (SAFE). He conceptualized and designed the first South Asian Capital Markets Conference and conducted eight rounds of Bank Economists Conference and designed National Banking Conference and Research Seminar. Dr Prasad chaired a forum on India’s Service Sector in the World Knowledge Forum held in Seoul, South Korea, in October 2006. He coordinated and organized the India events of the World Federation of Exchanges and SAFE. While at D&B, he developed industry research in banking, equity broking, and public sector enterprises.
Dr Prasad has published articles and guest columns in leading financial newspapers in India. He served as a member in the banking and finance committees of FICCI, Indian Merchants’ Chamber, Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and was a member in the advisory board of the Securities Law Programme conducted by the Government Law College, Mumbai. Dr Prasad also served as a member of the RBI’s Standing Committee on Data Dissemination (2006).
Dr Jinesh Panchali is a PhD in Management in the area of Mergers and Acquisitions from Faculty of Management Studies, MS University of Baroda. He is a postgraduate in Management with specialisation in Finance. Dr Panchali is also a Cost Accountant. Prior to joining FTKMC, he was working with Indian Institute of Capital Markets as a Dean.
Dr Panchali has 19 years of professional experience in teaching. He was a member of the steering committee constituted by National Security Council Secretariat of the Prime Minister’s Office, under the chairmanship of NN Vora to oversee training programmes on economic security. Besides, he was a member of the National Task Force set up by the Forward Markets Commission. During 2003-04, he was a member of the committee on Corporate Governance, Indian Merchants’ Chamber. He was also a team member of the World Bank-sponsored programme for preparing training material for Indian Venture Capital Association. Dr Panchali has offered a programme for DCDM, Mauritius, and was a consultant to the Capital Market Development Authority, Fiji. He is instrumental in initiating training and certification programmes, and alliances with educational institutions for FTKMC. Dr Panchali regularly visits XLRI, Jamshedpur; IIM, Indore; XIMB, Bhubaneswar; and IIT, Mumbai, for courses in Valuation, Private Equity, Venture Capital, and Mergers & Acquisitions.
Dr Raosaheb Mohite has a Doctorate in agricultural sciences from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. Before joining FTKMC, he was advisor to the State Agricultural Marketing Board, Pune, for over eight years. He was also the director of National Post Harvest Technology Institute, Talegaon-Dabhade, Pune, and the technical and administrative co-ordinator of the Market Development Project of the Michigan State University’s PFID-F&V programme funded by USAID.
Dr Mohite’s areas of expertise include supply chain management, market infrastructure development, and value addition. He was involved in preparation of the report on strengthening of agricultural marketing in the country, under Shri Shankerlal Guru’s chairmanship. He has about 24 years experience in research, consultancy, and work related to agriculture, horticulture, agri-business, agri-processing, and agri-marketing.
Ketul Contractor has over 15 years of experience in handling international assignments, new initiatives, and capacity building through market creation and market development. He has expertise in change management in the financial sector, knowledge management, financial education and financial literacy, business identification and development, marketing and communication, institutional relations and client relationship, and project financing.
In FTKMC, he is primarily responsible for strategic marketing and communication for capacity building and business development. In his previous association with Nirma University, Mr Contractor held responsibilities such as industry-academia relations, communication strategy, student activities, and interface for developing contemporary and market-driven curriculum. In his earlier engagement with SICOM Ltd, he was involved in business generation, developing channel partners, structured finance, and project appraisal for fund-based and non-fund-based financing.
Mr Contractor received his second Master of Business Administration from University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK and has academic interest in entrepreneurship and knowledge management.
SS Nagaraj has 28 years of rich and varied experience in the financial sector. He is a science graduate from the University of Pune and holds Postgraduate Diploma in Bank Management. He started his career with Canara Bank and soon joined Andhra Bank as a probationary officer to gain almost 20 years of rich banking experience. He has independently handled branch management for eight years before taking over as a dealer for Money & Debt Markets with the Funds & Investment department of Andhra Bank. Mr Nagaraj was vice president and dealer with Discount & Finance House of India Ltd (now known as SBI DFHI Ltd, a company promoted by the RBI to activate money markets) and was chief dealer for one-and-a-half years, prior to his joining FTKMC. He has been associated with various committees set up by his former employers as well as the RBI, the CCIL, the FIMMDA, and the PDAI for the development of negotiated dealing system, code of conduct, treasury software, settlement procedures, etc.
Manickam Ravindran has a rich banking experience of over 20 years, having held senior positions in Canara Bank and Indian Overseas Bank. He was the principal of the Staff Training Centre of Indian Overseas Bank in Trivandrum, where he has trained more than 8,000 bank officers in areas such as general banking, credit, foreign exchange, etc. For over seven years, he was the Joint Director of Indian Institute of Banking & Finance, a professional institute set up by commercial banks and the Reserve Bank of India. Mr Ravindran was deputed to Florida, USA, to attend the North American Case Research Association Annual Conference in 2002. In 2004, he participated in a conference organized by the Fixed Income Money Market & Derivative Association of India in Singapore.
Mr Ravindran has authored a book, ‘Selected Essays on Contemporary Banking’, and has written several articles in various publications. He is a postgraduate in Commerce and holds diplomas in International Banking, Bank Management, and BEC (Cambridge). He is a certified associate of Indian Institute of Bankers, Mumbai.
Shilpa Puri has over 11 years of experience in financial and capital markets. She has undertaken numerous assignments as economist with stock exchanges, leading research houses, and rating agencies. She has been extensively involved in the research of international best practices in exchange operations. She has also conceptualized and edited various reports on the financial markets. In FTKMC, besides undertaking studies on financial instruments, she has designed and developed customized training modules for corporates and senior professionals of the financial sector. Ms Puri is a postgraduate in Economics from the University of Mumbai.
Maggie Rodrigues has a BA (Honours) in Economics. She has worked with Indian Banks’ Association for more than two decades in various sections like Banking Operations, Administration, Personnel, Economics Department, etc. Ms Rodrigues has coordinated various programmes and workshops and assisted in bringing out publications on public, private, and foreign banks. She brought out the quarterly journal ‘Asia Pacific Rural Finance’, an international publication of APRACA. In 2007, she joined Dun & Bradstreet and coordinated publications such as ‘India’s Top Banks’, ‘India’s Top PSUs’, and ‘India’s Top Equity Broking Houses’. In FTKMC, she coordinates conferences at national and international levels along with bringing out publications on financial markets.
George Oommen has over 34 years of experience in various sectors, of which 21 years are in media and publications. He was with The Times of India for 16 years, editing week-end magazine articles and mainstream news articles. Mr Oommen has written and published features, short stories, poems in various publications in India and abroad. He edited content for MCCP (Microsoft Certified Computer Professional) exams and other E-Learning courses for Microsoft while he was with Lionbridge Technologies as Content Editor. He was Associate Editor of Poiesis, a literary journal published from Mumbai. In FTKMC, Mr Oommen edits content for all publications, market insights, etc. He also edits content for the FTKMC website. He is a postgraduate in English Literature.
Hitesh Sethia has represented FTKMC in various seminars and has conducted training programmes at reputed institutes, such as Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad & Bangalore); Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development (SCMHRD), Pune; Birla Institute of Management Technology, Noida; Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research (Mumbai & Bangalore); Vaikunth Mehta National Institute of Cooperative Management (VAMNICOM), Pune; and RBI College of Agricultural Banking, Pune.
Mr Sethia is a postgraduate in Finance & Management. He has designed and organized many short-term and long-term training programmes across different parts of the value chain in the commodity ecosystem. He is also the programme director of the certificate programme, Diploma in Commodity Markets (DICM), conducted jointly by FTKMC and Welingkar Institute, Mumbai. Mr Sethia has conducted more than 20 training programmes on Jobbers, Arbitrage, and Spreads. His areas of speciality are exchange risk management, market operations, clearing and settlement, delivery mechanism, price risk management, and volatility analysis in commodity markets. He has also written market insights on commodity and currency markets.
Afzal Saboowala has eight years of rich and varied experience in the educational and corporate business sectors. He is a commerce graduate from Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics affiliated with the University of Mumbai. He started his career with Island India Holidaymakers, followed by Reliance and NIIT to gain almost three years of experience in corporate business management and retail business management. For two years, Mr Saboowala has independently handled the branch management of Global Enterprise Infotech Solutions, an SAP Training Partner, before joining FTKMC, where he is instrumental in setting up new franchise centres and launching training centres for professional and career-oriented courses in various asset markets and segments.
Giridhari Kawadker has successfully organized several national and international training programmes, including the month-long programme conducted for Ethiopian delegates. His training sessions cover topics such as exchange operations, commodity derivates, etc. Mr Giridhari has done a comparative study on the Mutual Funds industry. He holds Master of Financial Administration (MFA) from Shri Vaishnav Institute of Management, Indore.
Suprabhat Kumar has done BSc in computer science, maths, and physics. He has also done a one-year Postgraduate Programme in Securities Market. The projects he handled include Equity Research Report on India Cement, Performance Analysis of Mutual Funds in India, and Financial Analysis of Cement Industry in India. He also prepared research reports on gold, nickel, silver, and zinc.
Pinky Jain has made valuable contributions in carrying out research related to various FTKMC publications such as South Asian Financial Markets Review, Financial Markets Review 2010, The State of Banking, and Comments on Bimal Jalan Report of SEBI. She has been preparing presentations, handling corporate Facebook account and coordinating various programmes and events. Before joining FTKMC, she had a short stint with ICICI Bank as a Marketing Executive. She also worked as a Research Analyst for Venture Securities. Ms Jain is a graduate in Commerce and holds a postgraduate degree in Management, with specialization in Finance.