Oman India Joint Investment Fund’s Satish Chavva has been appointed by the British International Investment or BII (formerly CDC), to lead its direct private equity division for south Asia.
“I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Head of direct private equity - south Asia at the British International Investment (formerly CDC),” Satish Chavva said in a LinkedIn post.
Since July 2016, Chavva was the director for private equity investments at Oman India Joint Investment Fund, a mid-market private equity fund focussed on investing in India.
The British investment firm has been aggressively making changes in its senior management over the past few months.
In February this year, BII appointed four new managing directors including India’s Abhinav Sinha as managing director and head of technology and telecom. In November, it appointed former Google executive, Diana Layfield as its new chairperson making her the first woman to head BII.
A graduate from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, Chavva has previously worked at Citi as an investment banker in UK for over 11 years and as a director in Mumbai. He also had two smaller stints at IBM and Trilogy Inc, where he kick-started his professional career.
Chavva holds an MBA Management degree from INSEAD and has pursued a Masters degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin.
Earlier this month, the UK’s development institution, BII also joined as an anchor investor in Aavishkaar Capital, the impact investing arm of India’s Aavishkaar Group that closed in excess of Rs 1,000 crore for its eighth impact fund overall and sixth fund dedicated to investing for impact in India.
British International Investment has an existing portfolio of over $2 billion in India. Globally, in the last five years it has invested close to £7 billion (around Rs 69,620 crore).
Last year, BII announced the intention to invest up to $1 billion in climate funding in India over the next five years. Over the last four years, CDC has invested over $1 billion in climate finance across Africa and South Asia.
Established in 1948 as CDC, which was rebranded as BII beginning April 2022, the investment company has added Southeast Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific region as its new focus areas for business expansion.