Krishna Handa is a graduate in Biotechnology and Bio-chemistry, Law, and an MBA from Suffolk University, Boston, USA. She is a serial ideator and entrepreneur. In 2005, she founded Dorizoe Lifesciences Limited, an Ahmedabad, India-based global Contract Research and Development Organization. As Dorizoe achieved scale and profitability, she handed it over to a professional team to manage and went on to start ‘ello’, a kids apparel and lifestyle products company. After that, she started Claris Capital - a venture capital and angel investing arm of Claris Group. She drives the Group’s CSR activities through Brihati Foundation. Krishna likes to focus on future ideas and sustainability as her topics of interest and excellence. She has to her credit, partnering with Gujarat University to do one of Gujarat’s first start-up conferences for university students. She is also actively involved in restoring the old city of Ahmedabad.
Arjun Handa is the Vice Chairman and MD of Claris Group. He is an MBA from Northeastern University, Boston, USA, and holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Accounting from H. L. College of Commerce, Ahmedabad. He likes to focus on people, entrepreneurship, and management quality. He would like to add value to the lives of people in the world through his businesses and investments and contribute to the society by creating opportunities for people in the fields of sports and culture.
Arjun took Claris in 2007 from a small family business and grew it into a global specialty injectables company in the pharmaceutical industry generating a value of over a billion dollars and generating significant value for shareholders. He has had the experience of doing a private equity infusion, an IPO, 3 strategic deals including a JV, and then finally a de listing of Claris. All his strategic deals of value creation have been with one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.
Under Arjun’s leadership, Claris received 8 times in a row the ‘Great Place to Work Award’, was featured numerous times in Fortune India ‘The Next 500’, Business Standard ‘BS 1000’, Inc. India Innovative 100 List, and many more. He has been recognized for his entrepreneurial and leadership qualities by The Economic Times ‘Promising Entrepreneurs of India’ (2016), ‘Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Award 2016’ in ‘Most Promising’ category by Enterprise Asia, to name a few. He is now focusing on building Abellon waste to energy that does waste management, plastic recycling and focuses on circularity. As part of his gratitude, he invests and mentor entrepreneurs and startups to take India forward. Apart from work, Arjun likes to read books on entrepreneurship and management, is a car & technology freak, and holds a deep interest in world music. He was also a professional football player.
Mit is a professional with more than 26 years of experience across various sectors like Insurance, Education, Financial Services, Pharmaceuticals and Waste Management. Since 2010 he is part of the senior management of Claris and Abellon heading Investor Relations, Treasury, Corporate Finance, M&A, Strategic Projects and the Family Office. He has a proven track record in the areas of executing strategic project and has been instrumental in creating value for the group with Strategic Projects, such as a 1300cr JV with Otsuka, sale of the speciality injectable business to Baxter for an EV of US$ 625mn to name a couple. Mit has managed the entire circle of Investor Relations, starting with the IPO for the company in 2010, onboard and managed relations with Marquee domestic and international funds for 8 years and became one of the companies to get a successful delisting for the Exchanges in 2018 after the group’s exit from the pharma business.
He has strong leadership skills that provide him the ability to work with teams across functions to deliver results. His Interpersonal skills and strategic thinking make him an ideal resource for Negotiations and Strategy.
Keyur is Investment professional with 12+ years of experience with an excellent knowledge in public equity market (US & India).
Currently, working with Claris Capital, a venture arm of Claris Ltd, company is making aggressive investments in start-up and PE. Keyur source the best start up deals, helping founders to take any strategic decisions and evaluate the deal in terms of growth and profitability.
Prior to the current job, Keyur was working with S&P Global for around 8 years where his job was to analyse the top 100 Asian Bank financials – Fundamental Banking was the division. Keyur also worked as a consultant with companies based in USA and Australia to set up trading and equity research desks.