The Finance Association of XLRI hosted GNOSIS 2018, XLRI’s annual finance symposium at Mumbai.

The symposium saw Dr Rajeev Lall, founder & CEO of IDFC Bank, deliver the Key Note Address on Banking and financial services in India:  The expanding horizon.

He gave a rousing speech on how banks and other financial institutions can maintain a balance between social responsibility and commercial viability, by addressing all stakeholder needs. The key-note speech was followed by a panel discussion on ‘Consolidation of the Banking Industry in the wake of NPAs by four eminent panelists including Anshula Kant, who is the MD of State Bank of India; Rahul Chawla, MD and Head of Structured Finance Trading and Structuring, Deutsche Bank; Sanjeev Lall, Partner, Udvik Infrastructure Advisors LLP and K. Balasubramanian, who is the MD and Head of Corporate Banking, Citibank South Asia.

The discussion was moderated by the famous journalist and Executive Producer at Bloomberg Media, Harsha Subramaniam.

The panelists conducted a very enriching discussion about the current NPA crisis, mergers and acquisitions that can enhance the capital base and suggested reforms to strengthen the banking industry and SMEs in India.

This panel discussion was followed by a session by our guest speaker, Samit Ghosh, Founder MD and CEO of Ujjivan bank who spoke about his journey on how he founded Ujjivan Bank, it's current business model, the challenges he faced and Ujjivan bank’s future goals. The post-lunch session had an interesting line up for the second panel discussion on ‘Future of Alternative Investments in India’.  The panel was moderated by Ms. Mitali Mukherjee, Financial Journalist, Co-Founder and Editor at The MoneyMile.

The panel saw stimulating discussions about various categories of investments in India, legacy structures of alternative funds and how to hedge the risks related to them followed by a very intensive Q&A session.

The panel discussion was followed by the next guest speaker Mr. Umakanta Panigrahi, MD at Duff & Phelps on the topic ‘Valuation of unconventional businesses’.

The ‘GNOSIS Excellence Awards’ ceremony saw distinguished XLRI Alumni such as Sanjeev Lall and Shamik Moitra, in addition to Sandeep Upadhyay, MD and CEO, Centrum Infrastructure Advisors Ltd., Anita Belani, Operating Partner at Gaja Capital, VInay Razdan, CHRO, HDFC and Santosh Das Kamath, MD and CIO, FIxed Income, Franklin Templeton receive awards for their achievements in the sector.

Each of them shared their experiences and memories of their time at XLRI, much to the delight of the audience.