Siddharth Velakacharla

Siddharth Velakacharla retired as a Partner of Indus Capital Partners headquartered in New York, USA (hedge fund company managing approximately USD 5 billion across Asian markets) in December 2020, where he managed the Indus Hong Kong office.  Sid has over twenty years of investment experience managing equity long-short and long-only portfolios, mainly across Asian markets.  He joined Indus Capital in 2006 where his primary investment responsibilities have encompassed running discretionary equity long-short investment portfolios across Asia within the broader Indus funds and managing the Indus India fund since 2015.

Sid started his investment career at Merrill Lynch Asset Management in New Jersey, U.S.A. as an investment analyst and then helped manage Asia ex-Japan equity mutual/pension fund portfolios within the Dragon Fund Group (headed by Dr Kara Tan Bhala) as Director and Associate Portfolio Manager (1994-2000). His experience also involves an entrepreneurial venture as Vice President and Head of Finance & Operations of a privately held analytics software company (Neonyoyo) where he helped structure the sale to Nasdaq-listed Interwoven (later acquired by Autonomy and now under Hewlett Packard) in 2000 and then spent two years with Interwoven as the head of Treasury and Investor Relations (2000-2002). Sid’s investment experience also includes three years as Principal and CIO of Akul Group, a short alpha focused market neutral equity fund based in New York (2003-2005). Prior to business school, he spent two years with the Shriram Group in India first as a Management Trainee with Shriram Honda (JV with Honda Motor, Japan) and then as the Executive Assistant to the CEO of Shriram Refrigeration Ltd (JV with and later acquired by Tecumseh Products, USA).

Sid has an MBA from the Ross School of Business (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, class of 1994), a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Osmania University in India (class of 1990) and completed his schooling at Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet, India. He is a permanent resident of Hong Kong where he resides with his wife and two daughters, both of whom are pursuing their undergraduate studies in the United States. He was a competitive athlete in his early days and a member of the team that won the Gold and Silver medal in badminton at the National India School Games in 1986 and 1985, respectively. He was also the elected President of AIESEC, Hyderabad during his college days and was later awarded one of five scholarships across India by ITC, Ltd. to pursue his MBA.