Rajiv Dhar Named CEO, Director of NIIFL
Posted on 05/12/2023
India’s National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) has named Rajiv Dhar Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director on an interim basis. NIIF thanked Sujoy Bose for his contribution in building NIIFL to be a growing alternate asset manager as he left. Rajiv has over three decades of experience across multiple sectors, including Financial Services, Telecom, Oil & Gas (upstream and downstream), Construction, and Real Estate, spanning across several countries. With a track record in Corporate Finance, Strategic Planning, M&A, cost control, risk management, tax, restructuring and governance segments, he has led several successful capital raising assignments (project recourse and general corporate purposes) and has relationships with banks and multilateral finance agencies.
Rajiv joined NIIF in September 2017 and was responsible for managing the company’s operations, governance, and compliance verticals and a part of the investment committee. Before joining NIIF, Rajiv served as an Executive Director with Omzest Group, based out of Oman. At Omzest, Rajiv was responsible for managing strategy and finance functions for the holding company and was on the Board and Committees of crucial portfolio companies of the Group. During his nine-year stint, he worked on several key projects, managing at Joint Venture/Investment opportunities, formulating the business strategy for the Group, and implementing business sustainability models to address challenges related to growth and profitability. He led the merger of HSBC ME with Oman International Bank. He also led investments in new technologies in such as enhanced oil recovery in the Oil and Gas sector, water, technology, and industrial products.
Before Omzest, Rajiv worked with the TATA Group for 15 years with different entities across varied roles. Rajiv joined TATA Group in 1994 with Tata Petrodyne engaged in Oil and Gas exploration business. He was transferred to Bombay House, Tata Group’s HQ, in 1999, where he joined Tata Industries Limited (TIL). At TIL, Rajiv was responsible for Tata Groups’ investments in technology and sunrise industries and managing relationships with JV partners. His role also included implementing a long-term strategy to address opportunities in new and rising sectors post-liberalization. From TIL, he grew to become the CFO and Management Committee member of Tata Communications, one of the leading telecom and technology companies. Some of his core responsibilities in this role included managing business & financial planning, managing enterprise risk, internal audits, treasury, taxation, accounting, financial controllership, investor relations, procurement, to name a few. Rajiv led a 250-member global team with seven direct reports. Rajiv has also worked with Roto Pumps and Ansal Group in the early days of his career, helping him build his perspective on Manufacturing and Real Estate business. Rajiv holds a Bachelor in Commerce with Honors from Delhi University and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He has also completed his Executive Development Program from Wharton Business School and Leadership Management Program at Harvard Business School.
