Our Directors

Kalpana is Co-founder and Managing Director at Svakarma Finance. She is a senior banking professional with about 30 years of experience across the Indian financial services sector with a specific focus on building consumer businesses such as banking, consumer finance, financial inclusion and unsecured lending including credit cards.

Over a 16-year career at Citibank, she was the founding member of the Cards Business for Citibank India, Head of Women’s Banking segment and Head of Microfinance for the Consumer Bank.  She co-founded and was Director of IncValue Advisors, a boutique consulting services firm and has worked with financial institutions, private equity firms, banks and NBFCs in an advisory capacity.  

In recent years, she has been associated with the financial inclusion sector through consulting assignments and board positions.

Kalpana is a Chartered Accountant and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce.

Vivek is Co-founder and  Chairman at Svakarma Finance. He is a senior financial services professional with over 30 years’ experience in leading and managing business initiatives across retail loans, payment products, housing finance, and has extensive experience in managing relationships with the regulators, government, public sector, financial institutions, JV partners and investors in different parts of the globe.

Previously, in addition to leading business lines in India, Poland and Taiwan, he has also managed country level responsibilities across all functions as the Country Head (Consumer) of Citibank for Turkey and Saudi Arabia and as the Country Head (Retail) for Centurion Bank in India. Vivek was also the Managing Director and Group CEO of Destimoney Group.

In recent years, he has been associated with the financial services sector through board positions.

Vivek is an MBA from IIM Bangalore and holds a BE (Hons).

Kaushik is Co-founder and Promoter Director at Svakarma Finance. He is a financial services professional with over 30 years of global experience in setting up Operations, Delivery and Customer Service.

Previously, he has over 20 years of experience in Banking across senior roles in Operations & Technology with Citibank (over 15 years) and Samba Financial Group (Saudi Arabia), as Group Head – Operations & Technology at Samba and as a board member of E-serve, the BPO subsidiary of Citibank. Outside of Banking, Kaushik has been the COO of Tata-AIG General Insurance Company and has been the Global Delivery Head for General Atlantic, a US based PE fund.

Kaushik had also co-founded IncValue Advisors Pvt. Ltd, a boutique consulting services firm focused on strategic and execution consulting in the financial services sector. In recent years, he has been associated with the financial services sector through consulting assignments and board positions.

Kaushik is an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and a fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and B. Com from the University of Mumbai.

Tarun is a Partner at Encourage Capital and specializes in private equity investments. He has been with the firm since 2011, when he started with Wolfensohn Fund Management (Encourage Capital's predecessor firm). He has been actively involved in the firm's clean energy, financial services and consumer sector investments. Previously, Tarun worked in the corporate finance and investment banking team of PricewaterhouseCoopers India where he advised clients on PE/M&A transactions across multiple sectors. Tarun graduated with a Bachelors in Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering (University of Delhi) and an MBA from Faculty of Management Studies (University of Delhi). Tarun is also a Chartered Financial Analyst® (CFA) Charterholder.

Ameya Bijoor is a Partner with Encourage Capital and has over 20 years of experience across private equity, corporate finance and development. Ameya co-leads the clean energy finance and financial inclusion team. Since joining Encourage Capital’s predecessor firm, Wolfensohn Fund Management, in 2008, Ameya has been actively involved in investments in Electronica Finance, Annapurna Finance, Svakarma Finance, Development Credit Bank, National Stock Exchange of India, Repco Home Finance, Ujjivan Financial Services and Fabindia. Prior to joining WFM, Ameya was a Manager in Standard & Poor’s Transaction Advisory Services practice, where he led financial due diligence investigations for private equity and strategic clients. Ameya began his career at Arthur Andersen. His experience at Standard & Poor’s and Arthur Andersen included approximately 50 transactions across a range of industries with an aggregate value of approximately US$10 billion. He also served as the Head of Operations for the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative in India where he helped to launch the local office by developing strategic objectives, negotiating partnership agreements and recruiting staff to support the Government of India. Ameya has a CPA (inactive) and received a B.B.A. in Accountancy, magna cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.