Management Team
Hardika Shah is the Founder & CEO of Kinara Capital, a fast-growth fintech in India driving financial inclusion of small business entrepreneurs.
Kinara Capital disrupted small business lending in India by offering No Property Collateral loans to entrepreneurs largely neglected by formal lending. Recently, Kinara Capital was recognized as Bank of the Year-Asia by the IFC/World Bank for its pioneering work in SME financing.
Prior to creating Kinara Capital, Hardika spent 20+ years as a management consultant with Accenture, leading large teams and executing on complex projects for global companies across the US, EU and Asia-Pac. She has served as a pro-bono mentor for over a decade at top social entrepreneurship programs at Santa Clara University, Stanford University, Columbia University, Accenture Development Partnerships and the Acumen Fund.
Globally recognised for her passion and innovative work, Hardika is an Ashoka Fellow, has received the Financial Inclusion Award by the Sankalp Forum, and won the People’s Choice Live Audience Award at The Wall Street Journal’s Financial Inclusion event.
Hardika Shah earned her MBA from Columbia Business School and UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business joint program. She holds a B.A. in Computer Science from Knox College in Illinois, USA.
Thirunavukkarasu R. (Thiru) is the COO of Kinara Capital where he oversees the day-to-day field operations of a vast network of regional offices and hubs that are the first point of contact for our customers. Thiru has been with Kinara Capital from its early days and hand-delivered the loan disbursement to Kinara’s first customer.
He has been actively involved in the Indian microfinance sector for two decades. He began his career with Dhan Foundation, where he initiated and managed the microfinance program in a rural block in Tamil Nadu state.
He was also instrumental in promoting the microfinance programme of Dhan in the remote tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan through livelihood and agricultural intervention. Later, Thiru served as a consultant to Sir Ratan Tata Trust, Center for Microfinance, and Intellecap primarily in the development of business plans and capacity building for new institutions.
He joined Mimo Finance, a microfinance institution in 2006 as Operations Director and managed the daily company operations in North Indian states of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.
Thiru earned his Bachelors of Engineering from Tamilnadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore.
Aiswarya Ravi is the CFO of Kinara Capital where she oversees the financial planning and analysis, regulatory compliance, investor relations, taxation, and related financial needs, for a fast-growth NBFC. Aiswarya has propelled Kinara Capital’s growth by staying on top of a changing industry landscape and refined Kinara’s unique risk-assessment methodology.
Aiswarya is a qualified Chartered Accountant and Certified Information Systems Audit (CISA) professional with rich experience in Corporate Finance, Compliance, and Internal Audit. At ITC, Aiswarya was conducting internal audits for all businesses of ITC and at the GMR Group, she was responsible for strategic planning, corporate finance, and board reporting.
Aiswarya holds a Chartered Accountant degree from Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and is Certified Information Systems Audit (CISA) professional by ISACA.
Mohan brings to Kinara Capital his passion for Internal Audit that has continued since 25+ years and his expertise in Fraud Examination & Deterrence, Enterprise Risk Management & Business Excellence Assessment. As Chief Audit Officer for Kinara Capital, Mohan works to deliver value as Conscience Keeper & Critical Advisor of the management, Assurance provider to the Board Audit Committee on Governance, Risk Management and Controls & as pulse taker of business trends.
Previously, Mohan worked at Vistaar Financial Services Private Limited as Senior Vice President & Head of Internal Audit. He has also worked with Speedage Express Cargo, AFL Limited & DTDC in India & with Sumaria Group, Insignia Limited in the United Republic of Tanzania and Triton Group in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Mohan is a graduate in Commerce from the Bangalore University and also possesses a certificate in Forensic accounting and fraud examination from the West Virginia University. He is also a certified ISMS lead auditor and Business Excellence assessor and brings with him successful experience of implementing and auditing ISO quality management systems, ISMS audits, GMP audits and Social Responsibility Audits. He is proficient in both the EFQM model & Baldridge Excellence framework models used to assess organizational business excellence.
As a Certified Internal Audit trainer, Mohan has successfully developed content and conducted numerous workshops and trainings as a volunteer of The Institute of Internal Auditors, Tanzania (IIA Tanzania) during the years 2005-2010. He was recognized for his outstanding contribution as a founder & member of the Board of Governors of IIA Tanzania and also as a volunteer resource person to the National Board of Accountants and Auditors of Tanzania.
Anuradha is responsible for the Credit Risk function of the Company, leading a team of 100 + experienced credit risk persons. She brings with her 20 + years of experience spanning across MNC Banks and leading finance companies, having worked with HSBC, ABN Amro Bank (now RBS), American Express Bank, etc. The most recent stint was with Religare Housing Development Finance Corporation where she established teams and policies for affordable housing in South. She has multi-product experience having done underwriting, policy and portfolio management for Home Loans, Mortgages and Personal Loans.
She holds an MBA in Financial Management. Her earlier education has been across Indian and international formats having studied under IGCSE affiliated to Cambridge University. She is a national merits scholarship holder from Bangalore University for being among the top 50 rank holders at graduation level.
Soham brings 12+ years of experience across technology, finance, and economic development to Kinara Capital. Prior to joining, he built and deployed a credit product for small food and grocery traders at a VC backed technology startup based in Bangalore.
He started his career coding at Appian, then a tech start-up and now a multi-billion dollar software company near Washington, DC. Since then, Soham has followed a wide variety of interconnected interests across the world. He ran a non-profit promoting the right to information in New Delhi. At the World Bank, he was an analyst on large agriculture and livelihoods projects across the South Asia region. And prior to moving to Bangalore in late 2016, he managed people and operations in the research department of Bridgewater Associates, a large hedge fund near New York City.
Soham earned his Bachelors degree in Systems and Information Engineering from the University of Virginia. He has also earned a Masters degree in International Development, Economics and Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School (MPA/ID), Harvard University and studied finance at MIT’s Sloan School of Management
Khyati Shah oversees the internal and external communications for Kinara Capital including PR, CSR, social media, and branding. She holds more than two decades of experience building a career in Silicon Valley focusing on disruptive tech. Khyati has broad-based communications and marketing expertise in devising and executing strategic campaigns for start-ups and large companies including Apple, Bose, Verizon. She was invited to run a public relations workshop for a startup incubator hosted by StarcampSV.
Khyati has long been involved with social impact and volunteering efforts, she is a fervent animal lover. She has mentored in social impact incubator programs at Stanford University and University of Santa Clara, and assisted in the launch of a first-ever social impact bootcamp in San Francisco by Women’s Technology Cluster. Most recently, she worked with a startup to launch its social impact program for nonprofits in the US and coordinated a weeklong bootcamp. Additionally, Khyati has volunteered with the Guide Dogs for the Blind, Asha for Education, and Leukemia & Lymphoma Team in Training.
Khyati holds a B.A in Political Science and Spanish from Knox College in Illinois. She also holds an MBA from a joint program from Columbia Business School and UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. She is fluent in English, Spanish, Hindi and Gujarati.
Riji K optimizes the customer lifecycle by standardizing operational activities, and leading customer experience operations for Kinara Capital. Among other responsibilities, she manages a multi-lingual in-house customer service team to provide information, support, onboarding and account management for our customers.
Riji has over 13 years of experience in the banking and financial sector handling Credit Underwriting and Business Operations. She previously worked with Cholamandalam Investments and Finance company for over a decade.
Riji is a Post Graduate in Business Administration, specialised in Finance & Marketing, from Jansons School of Business, Coimbatore. She completed her undergraduate studies with an academic distinction from Bharathiar University, Coimbatore. Riji is certified by the Insurance Institute of India (IRDA) and is a Harvard certified professional in Management Studies.
Gracy Tavamani oversees the strategy and execution of the HR & Admin functions for Kinara Capital. She has been instrumental in scaling the talent base from about 50 employees to 1000+ in less than five years. Gracy leads a diverse HR team at Kinara Capital that is responsible for talent acquisition for both the head office and field positions, resource management, employee engagement, employee relations and performance management. She also leads a separate Admin team that provides a myriad of services and operational support companywide.
Prior to joining Kinara Capital, Gracy was the President of HR & Admin at MVJ College of Engineering in Bangalore. She holds 15+ years of rich experience having worked in multiple sectors including financial services, education, infrastructure, technology, and apparel.
Gracy holds an MBA in Finance & HR University of Mysore, and an Executive Development Program In Human Resources from XLRI Jamshedpur. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Business Management from American Business Management & Technology College.
Mayank Arora is the VP of Strategy & Products for Kinara Capital. In his role, he leads product development and strategic market expansion by analyzing new growth initiatives, including field marketing and partnership development.
Mayank brings a decade of international experience in Strategy Consulting and Business Development working with a range of companies. Prior to joining Kinara Capital, Mayank was the VP & Head at Electronica Finance. He has previously built his industry experience with Evalueserve, ariseOut and Beroe Inc.
Mayank holds a B.Tech in Civil Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi and an MBA from Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad.
Cecilia D’Silva brings over 20 years of experience managing large scale projects and cross-functional programs for global companies. At Kinara Capital, she is responsible for managing, planning and tracking extensive project delivery plans across multiple teams and stakeholders.
Prior to Kinara Capital, Cecilia worked as Senior Principal Delivery lead at Oracle where she drove 30+ critical programs and projects for implementing global solutions for Oracle’s consulting business. She has also served as Assistant Vice President of Operations for HSBC where she led operations for different verticals across the USA and the UK. Cecilia is passionate about sustainability and started the Train Green program at HSBC.
Cecilia holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Mysore. She is certified as a Project Management Professional (PMP)® from the globally recognized Project Management Institute.