Rajiv has over 20 years of experience in financial services with experience across corporate finance, structured trade finance, M&A, financial restructuring and business advisory.

In the early years of his career, Rajiv worked for a boutique Investment Bank, 20th Century Finance, where he worked across functions like Treasury, Funds Management, Execution and ultimately Client Origination and Relationship.

Rajiv then worked with the TATA group, in their strategy team and soon led the Tata Group’s foray into Investment Banking at TATA Finance, which had traditionally been a “Truck & Fleet finance company”. He built this into a very successful enterprise, making it one of the market leaders within a span of three years.

With the investment banking experience gained at 20th century and Tata finance, Rajiv founded Avista in the late 90’s as a Mid Market Investment bank focused on the high growth mid-tier corporate who had growing needs of capital raising, corporate finance advisory and business structuring.

During the past decade, he has built the business across regions, with the help of a diverse group of people to firmly establish Avista as a Pan Asian Investment Bank. With the help of global partnerships, his current focus is on growing the cross border business across various corporate finance products and geographies.

Rajiv graduated with a Bachelors degree in Commerce from the University of Mumbai, combined with a professional degree in Accounting. In addition, Rajiv has an MBA in Finance from SP Jain Institute of Management, Mumbai and is currently pursuing the prestigious OPM program at the Harvard Business School.

Amit has over 15 years of experience in investment banking and various financial services functions. He has led transactions for numerous reputed Indian business houses and multinational companies across industries such as telecom, pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, textiles and retail.

His experience in restructuring includes advising Morepen laboratories Limited, an Indian Pharmaceuticals company on developing and implementing a Corporate Debt Restructuring package. He has also advised on a number of fund raising transactions including fund raising for an SEZ real estate project, a real estate / hotel complex for Velankani and acquisition finance raising for Aspocomp, an electronics component manufacturer in Finland. In addition, Amit has advised various multinational companies for their India entry strategy including Elcoteq, Aspocomp and FSecure.

His experience in restructuring includes advising Morepen laboratories Limited, an Indian Pharmaceuticals company on developing and implementing a Corporate Debt Restructuring package. He has also advised on a number of fund raising transactions including fund raising for an SEZ real estate project, a real estate / hotel complex for Velankani and acquisition finance raising for Aspocomp, an electronics component manufacturer in Finland. In addition, Amit has advised various multinational companies for their India entry strategy including Elcoteq, Aspocomp and FSecure.

Amit has an MBA in Finance from the Institute for Technology and Management, Mumbai, a Bachelors degree in Commerce, and is qualified as a CPA (USA).

Monica Kochhar is the Director in charge of the Business Advisory division at Avista. Her areas of expertise span the services industry with specialized knowledge in consumer products, retail and the hospitality industry.

Monica started her career with a leading hospitality group in India, right after she completed her hotel management program at one of India’s most prestigious schools. After gaining valuable experience in the industry, she felt the need for more specialized knowledge and went on to do her MBA majoring in Marketing.

Post her MBA, Monica worked for India’s leading cosmetics company, Lakme, part of TATA group, which was subsequently sold to Unilever. She gained very valuable product management and sales experience at Lakme. Her next stop was to try a hand at Entrepreneurship, where she set up a successful kids clothing business, which manufactured and supplied high quality garments to some of India's leading retail stores .

Monica was convinced to join Avista about 5 years back, when Avista was growing its team as well as its product services. Being from the service industry and a people’s person, Monica took charge of the HR function as well as the nascent Business Advisory division and grew it to a significant revenue earner over the years.

Monica is a Graduate in Commerce & an MBA in Marketing from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management, University of Bombay. She also holds a Hotel Management degree from the Institute of Hotel Management Catering Technology & Applied Nutrition, Mumbai.

Kian Kiat Tan is a Senior Vice President in Avista’s Singapore office, focusing on M&A advisory in the Asia-Pacific region. Before joining Avista, Kiat worked for Deloitte Corporate Finance Singapore, Ernst & Young and AmInvestment Bank (a regional Southeast Asian Investment Bank) both based in Malaysia, where he was involved in various mid-market M&A, Capital Markets and Corporate Restructuring transactions for public and private companies, and for financial sponsors.

Kiat has worked on M&A transactions in the Asia-Pacific region, US and Europe, with companies such as Royal Philips Electronics, Glanbia, Britannia Industries, PT Mowilex, Actis and East Asiatic Company, focusing on technology, industrials and consumer food sectors. Kiat also trained as a Chartered Accountant in England and Malaysia in the audit, due diligence and tax divisions, where his clients included infrastructure, technology, financial services and consumer retail companies.

Kiat received an MBA from University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BA (Hons.) in Accounting from the De Montfort University, England. He is a Fellow Member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA), UK. He also holds the Capital Markets and Financial Advisory Services (CMFAS) certificate from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Haresh Daswani is a Vice President in Avista‟s Mumbai office where he focuses on M&A advisory across the Asia-Pacific region. Prior to joining Avista, Haresh worked in a principal co-investment subsidiary of Barclays where he was responsible for making private equity investments in growth-stage and middle-market companies globally.

Haresh previously worked at Man Investments in the power infrastructure and renewable energy investment team and also in the M&A team at Dresdner Kleinwort in London where he was responsible for providing financial and strategic advice to private equity and corporate clients.

Haresh has worked on several reputed private equity, M&A and capital markets transactions such as co-investing alongside the Qatar Investment Authority in BTG Pactual (Brazil‟s largest independent investment bank), and advising Blackstone on the IPO of its portfolio company Gerresheimer, Terra Firma on its acquisition of EMI, and CVC on its bid for BUPA‟s care homes.

Haresh started his career at Deutsche Bank in the M&A team where he worked on advising Apax and Hick, Muse, Tate and Furst on their acquisition of Yell and Permira on its disposal of Hombase Group.

Haresh holds a Masters in Finance from London Business School, and a B.Sc. (Hons) in Economics from University College London.