ARYSS Knowledge Partners
ARYSS Knowledge Partners
Surabhi Gupta : The Team : About ARYSS

Surabhi Gupta

Surabhi Gupta

The Private Banking career

In a decade long career, Surabhi started with being a pure personal investments advisor (as a wealth manager at ICICI Bank) and very quickly rose to becoming the Head of Treasury for the Indian operations of Dawnay Day International (DDI) - a UK-based group with interests across financial services, real estate and private equity. The DDI experience imparted hands-on knowledge of cross border money flow, corporate structuring, regulatory environment relating to FDI investments, taxation, company law, capital markets and gave her the opportunity to work across business lines viz Financial Services, Hospitality, Real Estate, Research and Art.

Surabhi began her career in 2000 with ICICI Bank in their erstwhile premier banking platform : ICICI Select and played a key role in launching the ICICI Bank Private Banking platform. During her 5 years with ICICI Bank, Surabhi moved up the ranks quickly from being the most successful wealth manager in a team of over 500 peers, to a team leader of the top ranked team nationally in the bank, to the city manager of the highest contributing region and then to the National Product and Business Development Head for the bank’s Private Banking business. She had the distinction of prospecting and managing some of the most high profile resident and non - resident Indian clients with combined AUMs of more than USD 200 million. With a mix of high margin asset products, current and savings account balances along with the investment products, she had the highest revenue margins amongst all client relationship managers. The client list included famous celebrities, sportspersons and captains of the Industry.

Her contribution in the areas of product innovation and team building helped exponentially increase both the client base as well as AuMs to over USD 6 billion which helped ICICI Bank’s Private Banking business to get ranked as the largest by CLSA in February 2005 and amongst the top 3 in the Asia-Pacific region by Private Banker International in September, 2005.

The Business Building experience

She joined the Dawnay Day AV group in July 2005 to set up the financial services business for Dawnay Day International in India. During the initial days, she single handedly managed to secure all the regulatory licenses for the group and worked closely with the Board to put together the core management team for the business. She was responsible for purchase of the 50,000 sq ft corporate office in mid - town Mumbai, as well as the group’s private equity investment in a research outsourcing joint venture.

She went on to become the youngest Executive Director for the business because of the pivotal role that she played in building a sizable business for the group across verticals like wealth management, portfolio management, investment advisory, stock broking and financial services distribution business. She was directly overseeing key functions of Finance, Human Resources, Legal and Compliance as well as serving as the group’s contact point with regulators like SEBI, stock exchanges, bankers and professional consultants.

The Group Role

Her contribution towards business building gave the Dawnay Day sponsors : Guy Naggar and Peter Klimt the confidence to appoint her as Head - Group Treasury for India. Her key responsibility was to allocate proprietary funds into their various businesses ranging from Financial Services to Hospitality to FDI Investments in Real Estate and also purchase of a large portfolio of over 200 works of art and other collectibles. She reported directly to Guy Naggar and Peter Klimt in UK with respect to this group function. Her job required incorporating investment vehicles in Mauritius, obtaining FDI and other regulatory approvals, on-going capitalization, inter-company treasury management and commercial debt – raising.

She also managed the group’s cash flows including for Dawnay Day’s 4 - star hotels business. While she managed the land acquisitions herself, she helped bring on board a management team to manage the hotels construction and subsequent management of the hotels proposed to be run under their own brand of Ten Hotels

The Businesses Sale experience

While all the businesses were being built with growth capital with a long term view, the liquidity crisis faced by Dawnay Day in July 2008 forced a sale situation in both the financial services and the 4 star hotels businesses.

Though the strength in both the businesses created attracted substantial interest from potential investors, in the short time window that such situations provide, in her own words, her biggest achievement till date has been, her ability to spearhead the entire process into successful sale transactions. The financial services business was sold to the US based USD 1.4bn private equity fund New Silk Route while the 4 star hotels business was sold to the Duet group of UK.

Post the completion of the sale process, Surabhi left alongwith the key members of the management team at Dawnay Day AV, to set up ARYSS Group. While the immediate focus is to set up a greenfield venture in the education space, she handles the additional responsibility to identify and invest in distressed companies with fundamentally strong business models.

Qualifications & Interests

Surabhi Gupta holds a Masters Degree in Finance from the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), Mumbai in 2000 after having completed her B Com graduation from NM College, University of Mumbai. She is also a qualified Cost Accountant having obtained the ICWA degree in 1998.

Feel free to contact Surabhi at surabhi.gupta@aryss.in, for any of your business query.

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