Lord Meghnad Desai is a Non-Executive, Independent Professional Director at Elara. In addition to being the Emeritus Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science, he was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Puraskar in 2004 and the Padma Bhushan in 2008. He is the former chairman and active member of the British Labour Party.
Lord Desai holds over 25 books and 200 articles in learned journals to his name and is also an Honorary Fellow of the London Stock Exchange. He holds a Masters’s Degree from the University of Mumbai and is a PHD from the University of Pennsylvania. He was awarded the ‘SKOCH CHALLENGER AWARD FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IN ECONOMICS’ in 2014.
Mr. Manoj Kohli, Non-Executive Chairman of Elara India, brings decades of experience in telecommunications, renewable energy, and technology investment. Formerly Country Head at SoftBank Group, he oversaw investments exceeding $15 billion in AI-focused portfolio companies.
As former Executive Chairman of SB Energy, he spearheaded achieving over 7GW of renewable energy capacity.
At Bharti Airtel, he transformed the company into the third-largest global company, earning numerous accolades, including “Telecom Man of the Year.” With degrees from Delhi University and executive programs from prestigious institutions, Mr. Kohli’s leadership is marked by a commitment to excellence. Passionate about fitness, he believes it to be integral to a healthy and joyful life.
Rakesh has over 20 years of post-qualification progressive experience in Senior Positions in listed and multinational companies in the securities market, finance, operations, compliance and legal, corporate secretarial, takeovers, and managing IPOs and Institutional placements. Prior to joining Elara as Director, he worked with CLSA Group.
Rakesh has been involved with transaction management of IPOs/Rights/QIP/PE/Open offers and has worked on numerous cross-border transactions. He has been responsible for setting up Elara in India and also for starting new offices in Singapore, Mauritius, and New York. He is a commerce graduate, holds a post-graduate degree in Law (Professional), is a fellow member of ICSI, and is also a qualified CPA from USA .
Currently, Rakesh is practicing as a Corporate Lawyer, registered with Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa. He deals with Corporate Laws and Securities Laws including the Companies Act, FDI, M&A, FEMA, SEBI Laws, RBI, NBFC, Arbitration, Contract, etc. and regularly appears before RBI, SEBI, Stock Exchanges, SAT, NCLT, NCLAT, High Court, etc.
