Team - GIFL

The Team

Our ambition is to be the best in our line of business and the partner of choice for our clients, who seek out of the box solutions within the financial services space. We work with the simple mantra that “Clients come first”

Leadership Team

Madhavan Sivashankar
Founder, CEO and Member of the Board of Directors(MBoD)

George Abraham
Strategic Advisor And MBoD

André Rauber
Head- Strategic Alliances And Investments

Email:[email protected]

Phone::+971 4 3325144

Madhavan Sivashankar

Founder, CEO And Member Of The Board Of Directors(MBoD)

A seasoned banker with over 30 years of experience in multinational banks like American Express Bank, ABN AMRO, Credit Suisse AG and Citibank, Madhavan brings along with him strong corporate leadership learning and business acumen.

With a proven track record of successful stints in his previous assignments, of which over a decade has been in the GCC, Madhavan possesses a keen understanding of the global financial services environment.

His strong relationship management skills augurs well with fulfilling client needs that enables him to drive the marketing strategy of GIFL.

Madhavan is a commerce graduate from the University of Pune and has obtained an MBA from IMDR, Pune. He is also certified in Banking and Finance by the New York Institute of Finance (NYIF).

Email:[email protected]

Phone::+971 4 3325144

Vishnu Deuskar

Principal Advisor & MBoD

Vishnu is a seasoned banking and finance professional with 43 to 45 years of experience in the Middle East, India and Africa.

Vishnu’s professional experience has been mainly in financial markets, covering Debt, Equity, Foreign Exchange, Treasury Management, Mergers & Acquisitions and Project Finance.

His last banking position was that of Managing Director of Global Markets, MENA Region, at ABN AMRO Bank. Since 2010 he is the founder and Managing Director of Salvus Advisors DMCC, Dubai, UAE. Prior to that, he has held a number of senior and board-level positions in India, Middle East and Africa.

Vishnu enjoys excellent relationships and a high degree of trust with a large number of banks and companies in India and the Middle East.

Email::[email protected]

Phone::+971 4 3325144

George Abraham

Strategic Advisor And MBoD

George is a seasoned Banker with 40 plus years of experience with International and the largest UAE banks of which the last 32 years have been in the UAE in Wholesale Banking.

He has personally managed some of the largest Government, Public Sector, MNC , Corporate and High Networth clients in the UAE. He lead the Wholesale Banking unit at one of the largest UAE Banks and was responsible for both a tenfold increase in Net Income over a period of five years post 2008 and an increase in Wholesale Banking assets in excess of USD 25 Billion over the same period. He then successfully conceptualized and put together a Financing package for the Midstream Diamond Industry for one of the largest UAE Banks.

He has an excellent understanding of the UAE and wider GCC markets and understands how best to navigate these markets through the mitigation of risks and optimization of funding through having a balanced mix of funding.

Email:[email protected]

Phone:+971 4 3325144

André Rauber

Head- Strategic Alliances And Investments

André is a senior Swiss banker with 33 to 35 years of experience in Finance and Technology.
After a decade in corporate and private banking at Credit Suisse André worked for two start-up companies before 2001 co-founding Braingroup, a Fintech company focused to date on digitalizing the advisory processes for bank and insurance companies in Switzerland. He subsequently worked another 5 years as Sales & Account Manager bridging finance and technology for Avaloq (leading Swiss Core Banking System provider) and Business Objects (Business Intelligence leader, now part of SAP).

Before relocating to Dubai in early 2017 André served for a decade as an Executive Director at UBS Wealth Management, covering Emerging Markets from Latin America to Middle East to Asia.

André holds a Swiss Master of Law degree, an Executive MBA from International Bankers School Chicago and is a certified Wealth Manager in Switzerland and Singapore. He is fluent in English, German, French, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish.

Alternative Investments Team

Sanjay Lal
Head - Alternative Investments

Email:[email protected]

Phone:+971 4 3325144

Sanjay Lal

Head - Alternative Investments

Throughout his career spanning 30-plus years, Sanjay has held top managerial positions in Alternative Investments, primarily real estate, in the USA, UAE, and Bahrain. In Bahrain, he was the Head of Real Estate Investments at TAIB Bank BSC (c), a premier regional investment bank with private equity real estate investments across the US, UK, Europe, China, Thailand, and India. He went on to become the CEO of Acacia Investments BSC (c), a category 1 investment company licensee regulated by the Central Bank of Bahrain.

He brings a depth of expertise and knowledge of real estate markets that enables him to create bespoke products to suit client needs.

An alumnus of The Modern School Delhi and Hindu College, Delhi (majored in Economics), he earned his MBA from the University of Massachusetts, Amher

Email:manish @gifl.org

Phone:+971 4 3325144

Dr.Manish Saurav

Head - Private Equity

Dr.Manish, having a career spanning over two-and-a-half decades, is an experienced private equity professional. He started his career in India before moving to GCC in 2006. Within GCC, he has worked in leadership positions in Kuwait, Bahrain, and UAE. In Bahrain, he was the Head of Private Equity at TAIB Bank, a premier regional wholesale bank with investments – direct as well as funds – in the US, India, China, Turkey, and several South-East Asian countries.

In addition to private equity, his domain expertise includes venture capital, strategic advisory, corporate finance, and project management across sectors. Based in Dubai, UAE since 2012, he has successfully advised local and global clients in raising capital, joint ventures, procurements, and in negotiating concessions from the public entities.

Dr.Manish holds a doctorate degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, and a PGDBM from Birla Institute of Management Technology, Greater Noida, India.

Corporate Finance and M&A Advisory Team

Aditya Shrikent
Advisor , Corporate Finance

Email : :[email protected]

Phone : :+971 4 3325144

Aditya Shrikent

Advisor , Corporate Finance

Adit has a career in banking and financial services spanning 29 years of diversified experience in senior leadership roles in corporate and wholesale banking, relationship management and business development across jurisdictions of India and UAE with strong origination and execution skills and in corporate finance and advisory. His key strengths are in the domain of corporate banking, risk management, corporate finance and advisory and relationship management with extensive experience in development and implementation of corporate banking policies. He established the bank’s loan syndication business following which he was heading a major business vertical within the bank and then was appointed as Acting Senior Executive Officer at a DIFC based entity.

Adit has been involved in multiple engagements across private clients and family offices across sectors. Adit is a Masters in Business Administration.

Email:[email protected]

Phone:+971 4 3325144

Lubna Kabir

Advisor, Corporate Finance

Lubna has 25 years of experience of working in the UAE, the USA as well as Singapore and Malaysia in various aspects of finance including strategy and risk management. Her former employers include PwC, AT&T, Credit Suisse, First Citizens Bank, and Emerging Markets Partnership. She is adept in synthesizing diverse viewpoints and coordinating senior level stakeholders to guide decision making.

She holds a MBA from Harvard Business School, Massachusetts and BA (economics), magna cum laud from Smith College, Massachusetts.

Private Wealth Advisory Team

Tusti Barua
Executive Director, Private Wealth Advisory

Amar Kukke
Senior Advisor, Private Wealth Advisory

Pulin Bhargava
Executive Director, Private Wealth Advisory

Amit Bhatia
Senior Vice President, Private Wealth Advisory

Puja Shah
Senior Vice President, Private Wealth Advisory

Email:[email protected]

Phone::+971 4 3325144

Tusti Barua

Executive Director, Private Wealth Advisory

Tusti is a veteran, banking/wealth management professional, with an overall work experience of 24 to 26 years, 19 years of which was with Citibank (India and Dubai), spanning across roles of Leadership, Wealth Management and Investment Management to name a few.

She is an expert in advising private banking clients particularly from UK,UAE, Africa and Bangladesh. Her core expertise lies in managing family offices, providing them with key wealth advisory services in various jurisdictions like Switzerland, Singapore, Hong-Kong etc. Her strong relationship management skills coupled with strong team building abilities have been the corner stone in all her endeavours.

Tusti has a post graduate Master’s degree in Economics, specializing in Statistics and Econometrics.

Email:[email protected]

Phone:+971 4 3325144

Amar Kukke

Senior Advisor, Private Wealth Advisory

Amar is a Senior Private Banking & Wealth Management professional with 20 years of experience. He has been managing clients from various geographies like the UAE, Europe and the CIS. His career thus far, has been spent with International and UAE banking platforms such as Citibank, Barclays and Emirates National Bank of Dubai.

By qualification, Amar is an MBA in sales and marketing. He is also certified by Securities & Commodities Authority (UAE Rules & Regulations) and Chartered Institute of Securities & Investments (ICAWM). He remains associated with CISI, UK for continued professional development.

Email:[email protected]

Phone:+971 4 3325144

Pulin Bhargava

Executive Director, Private Wealth Advisory

Pulin is a veteran wealth banker with about 2 decades of experience in wealth management . He has been covering geographies like the Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar. Prior to GIFL, Pulin has worked for several years in multiple geographies whilst employed with Citibank and Standard Chartered bank

Email:[email protected]

Phone:+971 4 3325144

Amit Bhatia

Senior Vice President, Private Wealth Advisory

Amit has spent most of his career in acquiring, managing and growing client relationships. His 16 years of experience is distributed between both large organizations and boutique regulated EAMs. Amit has spent a large portion of his working life in the UAE and has forged significant client alliances both in the region and in the continent of Africa.

An MBA by qualification, Amit possesses a key understanding of wealth advisory products and services.

Email: :[email protected]

Phone::+971 4 3325144

Puja Shah

Senior Vice President, Private Wealth Advisory

Puja has over 15 years of experience distinguished by excellence in sales, solid relationship skills, branch banking operations, learning & development in one of the largest private banks in India combined with 4 years of experience at a management consultancy firm in Dubai guiding diverse businesses in their go-to-market strategy in GCC, UK, Africa. Her experience of dealing in diverse cultures has helped her in developing a strong network of relationships mainly in the GCC and Western Europe.

Puja holds a post graduate diploma in financial management from Narsee Monjee institute, Mumbai and a Bachelor of Commerce from Mumbai University, India. She is multi-talented and has also won the Mrs India International title at Mrs India Queen Of Substance pageant in 2022, New Delhi.

Support Team

Surendra Naidu
Head – Finance and Accounting

Samson David
Director, Head - Compliance & Administration

Email:[email protected]

Phone:+971 4 3325144

Surendra Naidu

Head – Finance And Accounting

Surendra has over 28 years of experience in trading, contracting, real estate, utility and health care sectors in India and the U.A.E where he is resident for over 22 years. His last assignment was with Lifeline Hospital as Senior Finance Manager heading the finance and accounts functions.

He is a qualified Chartered Accountant from The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Certified Management Accountant from The Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India and Institute of Management Accountants of America

Surendra is an outsourced Finance Officer and is responsible for Accounts maintenance, reports preparation and fulfils the financial reporting responsibilities to the management and the DFSA.

Email:[email protected]

Phone:+971 4 3325144

Samson David

Director, Head - Compliance & Administration

Samson has 30+ years of experience in the Banking industry within the UAE. Having worked with large multinational and local banks like HSBC, Dubai Bank & Emirates Islamic, he has gained thorough market knowledge about the Financial Industry and significant exposure to banks core operations such as service management, relationship management, compliance support & branch sales.

Samson is a professional who understands core operations of the banking sector, compliance & regulations including AML risk, transaction monitoring & advisory related functions, security settlements, operational risk management, client on-boarding, stakeholder management and regulatory reporting.

Samson is a member of The Chartered Institute of Securities & Investment (UK). He holds CISI certifications in “Introduction to Securities & Investment” ( International) ; Global Financial Compliance and a Diploma in “Entrepreneurial Program” from “The Joseph Business School” Illinois, Chicago.

As DFSA approved compliance officer & MLRO, Samson is responsible for all compliance & legal related functions of the firm.

Email:[email protected]

Phone:+971 4 3325144

Eliza Hector

AVP - Office Operations

Eliza Hector is a highly-skilled administrative professional with a superlative service orientation and is well-versed with office administration, client servicing, procurement, operations and logistics. Her commitment to excellence and professionalism shines through her career and is poised to continue contributing to enhancing efficiency and productivity of the firm. Eliza has worked primarily in Asia and the Middle East, she holds a Masters in Business Administration degree and has attained scholarship for her outstanding performance.