Managing Director at Samhita Social Ventures Pvt Ltd
Krishnan Neelakantan made a career switch to the social development sector in 2012, after 17 years in financial markets. He started his career in equity markets with ICICI Securities, but the bulk of his experience was with CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, the top-rated house for foreign institutional investors (FIIs) investing in India. During this period, he built up extensive expertise on all key sectors as he evolved from being an investment analyst for the metals, engineering and power sectors to becoming equity market strategist and then Head of India Research for almost five years from 2007. His team was rated #1 in both the AsiaMoney and Institutional Investor polls in 2009 and 2011 and he too was regularly ranked in the top two positions for Equity Strategy, including being voted #2 analyst in India in the 2010 AsiaMoney Poll.
Krishnan has a B.Tech degree from IIT, Bombay and kicked-off his working life as a shop floor engineer at Indian Aluminium, Calcutta, before going in for a Post-graduation in Business Management from the XLRI School of Business and Human Resources, Jamshedpur. He has also attended executive development programmes conducted by the London Business School as well as the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business.
He is also a patron for Adarsh, a trust that works with differently abled children in Kerala, and was an active volunteer with Masoom – which supports children in night schools in Mumbai. Krishnan is also on the Board of Mentors for IvyCapital Ventures – a fund that focuses on professional entrepreneurs from premier education institutions of the country.
