Two partners. No layers in between.

Anand has spent more than three decades in Indian equities, and has held nearly every seat at the table — analyst, research head, portfolio manager, chief executive. He read electrical engineering at IIT Kanpur and took his management degree at IIM Ahmedabad, beginning his career in consulting and then in Citibank’s analytics group before moving into institutional broking and research.

Through the 1990s he built and led institutional research and equities businesses, including at IIT Investrust and ASK Raymond James, and went on to head portfolio management at Edelweiss Capital. He founded Gryffon’s portfolio management practice, ran it as an institutional manager, and made the decision in 2008 to return client capital ahead of the crash — the call that still defines how the firm thinks about risk.

He subsequently led equities at Brics Securities and served as Group Chief Executive and Managing Director of JRG Securities, the listed broking group later renamed Inditrade Capital. In recent years he has also advised public institutions on urban development and urban management, including work in Telangana, and mentors founders in financial services.

He is a long-standing independent voice on Indian markets, appearing regularly on CNBC-TV18 and ET Now and writing a column on markets and investing.

• B.Tech, Electrical Engineering — Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
• PGDBM — Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
• Former Group CEO and Managing Director, JRG Securities (later Inditrade Capital)
• Former Director – Equities, Brics Securities
• Former Head of Portfolio Management, Edelweiss Capital
• Founder, Gryffon Investment Advisors — SEBI-licensed portfolio manager, 2001–2008
• Partner, Pictern Technologies LLP (Fundyantra)

Market commentary and writing

Alpana leads Gryffon’s social-impact practice. She works with companies on corporate social responsibility strategy, on the development of education and programme content, and — the part boards find hardest — on the independent evaluation of whether the programmes they fund are actually achieving what they were designed to achieve.

That work matters more than it once did. Directors are now expected to account not just for the CSR budget but for its effect, and an honest evaluation, conducted at arm’s length from the implementing partner, is the only credible basis for that account. Alpana has carried out such evaluations for corporate funders and has designed programmes intended to survive them.

She read economics at Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow, and took her management degree at the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies in Mumbai. Before joining the firm full time she was Director of Strategic Partnerships at Samhita Social Ventures, one of India’s established social-impact advisory platforms, and she has been a designated partner of Gryffon Advisors LLP since its incorporation.

• MBA, Marketing — Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai
• BA, Economics — Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow
• Former Director of Strategic Partnerships, Samhita Social Ventures
• Designated Partner, Gryffon Advisors LLP