IIT Madras Foundation Endowment

IIT Madras Foundation Endowment was created in 2016. with the goal of supporting IITM research and educational activities over the next several years, decades and centuries. To this end, the Foundation has established a rigorous and fully accountable governance structure, along with a sound investment policy and risk management framework by experienced volunteer professionals. Our goal is to create an institutional quality investment organization, following the best practices for global asset management fiduciaries.

Investment Committee

George Koshy

1984 BTCH

George has worked for over 30 years in the financial services industry in a wide range of areas. He is currently the CEO and Chief Investment Officer at Alva Capital Management, a financial advisory and trading firm, which he co-founded over 10 years ago. Prior to that he was a Managing Director in proprietary trading in the Equities division at Deutsche Bank where he ran market-neutral, long-short strategies for 10 years. Prior to Deutsche Bank, he worked for 10 years at Morgan Stanley in a number of groups including Investment Management, Debt Capital Markets and Fixed Income. George started on Wall Street at Merrill Lynch in the Financial Strategies group.

George has a BTCH from IIT Madras, MS Chemical / Biotechnology Engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara and an MBA from the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago.

Neela Gollapudi

1989 BTME

Dr. Neela Gollapudi is a Senior Client Advisor at GenTrust, and he also oversees the investment research effort of the firm. In this capacity, Neela is responsible for managing the needs of some of GenTrust’s largest clients as well as setting the strategic vision for our research efforts.

Prior to joining GenTrust, Neela worked for over 15 years at Citigroup, Barclays Capital and Goldman Sachs combined. At Citigroup, he built and led the Interest Rate Derivatives strategy effort, focusing primarily on idea generation and hedging strategies for asset managers, bank portfolios, central banks, mortgage investors, insurance companies and hedge funds. While at Citigroup he was placed in the top 5 among Institutional Investors research rankings.

Prior to joining Citigroup, Neela traded interest rate products in both market-making and proprietary capacities, and held several interest rate strategy roles at Barclays Capital. He started his career at Goldman Sachs in the electronic market making group.

Neela received a PhD in Finance from SUNY Buffalo, a graduate degree in business from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, and an undergraduate degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Kumar Doraiswami

BTME 1983

Kumar brings over twenty five years of financial services experience spread across venture capital, hedge funds, derivatives, risk management and quantitative finance. He co-founded and serves on the investment committee of Tribeca Early Stage Partners, New York, where he oversees a portfolio of early stage tech and fintech investments.

Kumar helped conceptualize, fund and launch the start-up TrueEX, which is a market leader in digital trading and pre/post-processing of cleared interest rate derivatives. His prior experience includes derivatives research at Salomon Brothers; followed by sales & trading as well as strategic, executive management experience at Bankers Trust/Deutsche Bank and Natixis Capital Markets.

Away from finance, Kumar enjoys studying and collecting Indian contemporary art and sculptural antiquities. He has a BTME from IIT Madras; MS (Mechanical & Aerospace Science) from University of Rochester; and an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Shankar Nagarajan

BTME 1980

Nag brings over 30 years of experience in finance, first in academia and then in management consulting, and asset management – across a broad range of alternative asset classes and investment strategies. For the past thirteen years, he has been the Head of Risk Management and an Investment Committee member at Prisma, a KKR-owned alternative asset manager. Previously, he was a partner at Risk Capital, a boutique risk advisory firm for corporate clients. Earlier, he had senior roles at Deloitte and Bankers Trust, advising clients on strategic and tactical risk management. In his advisory career, Nag had been a senior member of teams that won Euromoney’s Best Risk Advisor Award for four years.

In his previous career, Nag was a tenured Associate Professor of finance at McGill University, Montreal, as well as a Visiting Professor of Economics and Finance at Columbia Business School and Stern School of Business, New York University. He has published in leading economics and finance journals and served as a consultant to the Federal Reserve and People’s Bank of China.

Nag’s interests lie in rural development, and women’s/children’s education/welfare. He has a BTME from IIT Madras, as well as an MS. and a PhD from Northwestern University.

Vasanth Victor

BTME 1982

Vasanth is a Managing Director and head of GIC business at Natixis Capital Markets, New York. During his 20 years at Natixis and the 11 years at Salomon Brothers earlier, he has had extensive trading experience in fixed income and equity markets in New York, Tokyo, London and Hong Kong.

At various times in his career, Vasanth has been responsible for businesses offering derivatives to fixed income, equity and structured products users. He was a key member of the workout group that managed the large runoff portfolio at Natixis after the financial crisis and has specialized knowledge of residential and commercial mortgage products in Structured Finance.

Vasanth is a member of the Board of Directors of the General Council of Finance and Administration of the United Methodist Church and is also the President of the United Methodist Stewardship Foundation of the Greater NJ Annual Conference. His interests lie in affordable housing and in mentoring young people.

Vasanth is a CFA charter holder and has a BTME from IIT Madras; MS (Industrial Engineering – Information Systems) from University of Wisconsin, Madison; and an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.