Meet our Board Members & Leadership

Shefali Pathak

Shefali is the Head – People, Diversity and Change at Vastu Housing Finance the holding company of Vastu Finserve.

Shefali is responsible for strengthening Vastu's People capabilities as an enabler for future business growth, liaising with business & function leaders on people strategy, performance management, and learning & development to drive greater talent density across the organization. She is also responsible for the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) program at Vastu.

She has an enriched experience of more than 8 years in delivering strategic projects and leading change across cross-functional and highly diverse teams. She comes with global experiences, having worked in the US and China across diverse industries. Prior to rejoining Vastu, she was working at Nike GCHQ.

Shefali is an MBA in Finance & Digital Business from China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), Shanghai.

Manish Kumar

Manish Kumar manages operations at Vastu Finserve. He is a seasoned Operations professional with more than 15 years of experience in operations, audit & risk control management, finance, and compliance. His past experiences include working with Kotak, HDFC, and Magma in various roles.

Manish has completed his Master's in Finance & Marketing from Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management, Lucknow.

Lokendra Bhukar

Lokendra is the National Credit Head at Vastu. He is responsible for credit and risk strategies, policies, and processes and obtaining reliable, accurate information for business decision- making.

Lokendra brings with him over 10 years of experience with expertise in credit and document review, operational improvement, and team building. Before Vastu, he has worked with IndusInd Bank and Magma Fincorp Ltd.

Lokendra holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management - Marketing and Finance from the Asia Pacific Institute of Management, Delhi.

Mohandeep Singh Bedi

Mohandeep Singh Bedi is the General Manager – Used Car Vehicles at Vastu Finserve.

Mohandeep is a seasoned professional with over 25 years of experience in revenue management, sales and distribution, and P&L ownership. He has led large and diverse teams across geographies with a strong focus on developing talent within the organization. His experience includes working with HDFC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, AVCO Finance, Tata Finance Ltd, and ESANDA Finance Limited.

Mohandeep has done B.A. (Hons) from the University of Delhi. He has also completed his Management Development Programme from IIM Ahmedabad.

Harish Rao

Harish Rao is the Head of Vehicle Finance Business at Vastu Finserve. He is a seasoned professional with over 20 years of experience in establishing and expanding vehicle finance business, especially in rural & semi-urban geography and in building larger teams. He has worked in leadership roles at Shriram Transport Finance, Magma, Fullerton India, AU Small Finance Bank, and SK Finance.

Harish is a post-graduate in English literature from Jai Narain Vyas University, Jodhpur.

Nikhil Carvalho

Nikhil is a founding team member at Vastu. He has over a decade of experience in working with tech-driven initiatives. He was instrumental in setting up Netblade Solutions Pvt Ltd, which was involved in developing customised cross-platform software applications across multiple verticals and digital marketing.

Nikhil heads Information Technology at Vastu and is responsible for delivering Vastu's digital initiatives and developing and executing tech strategy and architectural direction. He took the lead in building an in-house development team that built a market-leading Pulse platform. Nikhil is focused on delivering a great digital experience that leads innovation in the consumer lending industry and building a scalable lending platform.

Additionally, he works with the Vastu Finserve team as a leadership mentor to drive performance, tech adoption, and innovation and deliver new initiatives to improve business and processes. Nikhil has completed his BE in Computer Sciences from Mumbai University.

Mohd Shakil Khan

Mohd Shakil Khan is the Chief Risk Officer at Vastu Housing Finance Corporation Limited. Shakil is responsible for managing risk and analytics at Vastu. Earlier, he was Chief Operating Officer at Vastu managing credit and operations.

Shakil is a seasoned retail lending & risk management leader and has strong expertise in retail credit risk management, risk mitigation, data analytics, compliance management, collections strategy, and optimization. Shakil, in his previous assignment at Aditya Birla Housing Finance, was heading collections. He has worked in leadership roles in Tata Capital Housing Finance, ICICI Bank Ltd, Barclays Bank PLC, Capital First Ltd, Reliance Communications Ltd, Standard Chartered Bank, and a few others. Shakil had also worked as Chief Risk Officer at Vastu in the past.

Shakil is a graduate in english literature from Hansraj College, Delhi University and has a post-graduate diploma in marketing and advertising from Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan.

Mr. Sudhir Variyar

Mr. Sudhir Variyar has over two decades of proven leadership experience in financial services, primarily in the private equity sector. He is currently the Founding Partner and Managing Director at Multiples Alternate Asset Management. Sudhir joined the firm in 2009 at its inception and has been instrumental in growing the fund to its current standing. At Multiples, Sudhir oversees a number of activities including organisational design, fund raising and talent development. He is also a part of the firm’s investment committee and has successfully led a number of investments for the firm across the financial services, health care & logistics sectors.

Prior to Multiples, Sudhir was a Senior Director at ICICI. As a member of the firm’s Investment Committee, Sudhir played an important role in leading a number of investments across sectors including financial services and energy. In addition to private equity, Sudhir also holds strong experience in investment banking and structured finance.

Sudhir is a board member and advisor to several firms including Vastu Housing Finance Corporation Limited, Vikram Hospitals (Bengaluru) Private Limited and Sanctum Wealth Management Private Limited. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Varanasi (BHU) and a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

Vijay Kumar

Vijay Kumar has over three decades of strong expertise in corporate finance, fund raising and M&A. He also holds strong understanding of information technology and banking, having fulfilled several leadership roles at prominent franchises such as NIIT and ICICI.

Vijay worked with the NIIT Group between 2000 and 2012 where he was responsible for M&A and corporate finance activities of the group. During his stint, he led several large ticket transactions involving the acquisition and divestiture of companies, establishing strategic alliances, and undertaking corporate restructuring.

Prior to the year 2000, he worked for over 15 years with the ICICI Group, fulfilling various roles across the group’s project financing and investment banking divisions. His last position with the group was as Head of Investment Banking at ICICI Securities.

Since 2012, Vijay leverages his deep domain knowledge to advise companies in fund raising, M&A and corporate structuring. He is associated as an Advisor or Director on the board of various companies spanning various sectors including BPO, Media and Private Equity. He also continues to be a consultant with NIIT Technologies. Vijay also serves as an Independent Director on the board of Vastu Housing Finance Corporation Limited. He holds a B.Tech degree from IIT Delhi and an M.B.A from FMS, University of Delhi.

Sandeep Menon

Sandeep Menon is the Founder & Managing Director of Vastu Housing Finance Corporation Limited, parent company of Vastu Finserve. He is a seasoned banker with over two-decades of rich experience across general management, business strategy, risk management and sales at leading global financial institutions including GE Capital, Standard Chartered Bank and Barclays Bank PLC.

During his career, Sandeep is credited to have established a demonstrated track record in setting up and scaling retail lending businesses across consumer lending, SME lending, home financing, unsecured lending and vehicle financing. In his last role, Sandeep was a part of the founding team at Barclays Bank PLC in India as the Director and Head of Retail Assets and Banking Strategy.

In 2014, Sandeep quit his full-time job to embark on an entrepreneurial journey, which culminated in the birth of Vastu Housing Finance. In a short span of four years, Vastu has established itself as a prominent affordable housing finance company under the aegis of Sandeep’s leadership.

Mr. Sujay Patil

Sujay Patil is the co-founder and the Chief Operating Officer at Vastu Housing Finance, the holding Company of Vastu Finserve. Earlier, he was the Chief Risk Officer of Vastu Housing, managing risk strategy in line with the overall organisational goals, taking into consideration the portfolio growth, segmental focus, product mix, acquisition plans, risk cost budgets and other related variables. He lead all risk initiatives of the organisation and works towards efficiently managing the portfolio and asset quality.

Sujay is an experienced Banking & Financial services professional with leading organizations including GE Capital, Standard Chartered Bank, Indiabulls and Barclays Bank. He has successfully executed varied assignments in business strategy, product launches, planning, product management, front end sales, collections, CRM, cross-sell and portfolio management.

Sujay Patil holds an MMS (Marketing) degree from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management studies and BE (EL & TL) from the Mumbai University.

Udit Kariwala

Udit Kariwala is the Chief Financial Officer of the Company. Udit is a seasoned finance professional with diverse experience spanning corporate planning and strategy, general management, equity research, and ratings. He has a deep understanding of capital markets and the risk management domain. His earlier assignments have been with leading Indian and Multinational Financial Institutions such as HDFC Bank, Ambit Capital, Fitch - India Ratings and Research, and UBS Securities. His expertise and scope of work across assignments include financial research, analytics, curating business strategies, and investor management.

Udit holds a Bachelor of Engineering from K.J. Somaiya, University of Mumbai and an MBA from Welingkar Institute, Mumbai. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA Institute – Virginia) and a certified FRM (GARP – Jersey City, New Jersey, United States).

Satish Nair

Satish Nair is the Head of Treasury and Corporate Affairs at Vastu Housing Finance the holding company of Vastu Finserve. Satish manages the treasury function at the Vastu and is responsible to expand the liability base, arrange and execute roadshows, manage and maintain communication with the Investors, Regulators, Banks, Rating agencies, and DFIs and represent the Company with the regulators. He also manages compliance, communications, and brand outreach for the company for Vastu.

Satish is a seasoned corporate affairs and investor relations professional leading complex Integrated Public Policy, Investor, Marketing strategy, and business development. He is a veteran in the credit rating industry having spent over 13 years at Fitch Ratings, India Ratings & Research, and Brickwork Ratings in various roles covering fixed income research, investor outreach, and regulatory relationship.

Satish is a management and accounting graduate from the University of Mumbai.