Sharad Bhatia has over four decades of experience in progressively improved roles, across
three leading banking groups: ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Axis Bank. Sharad
channelized his energy and passion for innovation, coupled with a positive mindset and a
problem solving attitude, towards resolution of assets that have been categorised as non-
performing on the balance sheets of lenders while simultaneously working towards optimal
solutions for troubled corporates witnessing operational and financial stress. In his own
words he seeks to find “structured solutions for special situations”. In his last role, he was
Managing Director with Multiples Alternate Asset Management, a leading Private Equity
fund, and led their foray into investing in special situations.
After spending two decades in corporate banking, investment banking and asset
management, Sharad moved to resolution of stressed assets in early 2000, which was still
an unchartered space in Indian banking. He has since been closely involved with the
stressed assets space in various roles – a seller and a buyer of non- performing loans in a
bank and an Asset Reconstruction Company, and a Private Equity investor evaluating
investments in stressed companies, thereby gaining an all-round perspective of this sector.
Being one of the early entrants in this space, he was also in a position to successfully shape
some key policy developments in this sector. His first mover advantage was reflected in
investments made at attractive prices, which subsequently returned superior yields and
investor returns. Sharad has successfully resolved various types of non-performing loans,
ranging from cases where value was driven by the underlying business, through managing
turnarounds, as also cases where value resided only in the underlying collateral.
Sharad is a vocal proponent of adequate corporate governance structures, consequent to
his involvement with stressed companies as also through his association with over 25
corporate boards across various industries, in both executive and non-executive roles.
Sharad is presently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Kotak Mahindra Trustee
Company and an Independent Director on the Boards of Aditya Birla ARC Limited, Aditya
Birla Money Ltd. Limited, Kotak Pension Fund Limited and HKR Roadways Limited. Sharad is
also an advisor to SLO Technologies, a start-up in the fintech space, engaged in developing
products for the banking industry, supporting improved recoveries and effective credit
monitoring, which he has been mentoring since its inception. Sharad is also an Advisor to
Axis Trustee Services Limited, on various matters including business strategy and resolution
of exposures classified as Stressed/Non performing loans.
Sharad was deputed to the National Development Bank of Sri Lanka for training their
officers on project appraisal, credit monitoring and investment banking. He has also taught
at various business schools and continues to be an active speaker at various industry
seminars and forums on Stressed Assets and Restructuring.
Sharad has a B.Eng. in Chemical Engineering and an MBA. He also attended the Advanced
Management Program at INSEAD, France. He devotes his free time to reading books across
various genres, with a bias towards biographies and autobiographies.