Sonia Dasgupta, Managing director and CEO, Funding Banking, JM Monetary
Picture: Mexy Xavier
The Queen’s Gambit as a technique is a calculated threat that gives a chess participant with a aggressive edge. For Sonia Dasgupta, managing director and CEO, funding banking, JM Monetary, it isn’t only a transfer however her total method to enterprise. In a profession spanning nearly 30 years, she has constantly proven her skill to make daring strikes and drive development within the face of uncertainty.
Dasgupta has been a pivotal pressure in driving the success of JM Monetary’s funding banking division, which she has been heading since April 2022. Beneath her management, the corporate has achieved milestones, together with groundbreaking transactions. She has held key management positions on the firm, together with head of FIG (monetary establishment group) protection, head of M&A origination, and head of group borrowings.
Sanjiv Bajaj, chairman and managing director, Bajaj Finserv, says, “I’ve had the pleasure of working with Dasgupta for over 20 years throughout quite a few fundraising and M&A offers. Together with her huge expertise, she is ready to construction offers with a transparent buyer focus.” He provides that she works with ardour, in search of the very best outcomes from each deal. “She has a wonderful acumen and leads with readability and conviction, making her an efficient chief. She is a believer in constructing lasting relationships and I’m assured she’s going to take her agency to higher heights, offering inspiration to others.”
Born and raised in Mumbai, Dasgupta was a part of a household of six siblings the place schooling and mental pursuits had been valued. Her mom, a homemaker and a author of Hindi literature, and her father, a lawyer with a powerful emphasis on lecturers, instilled in her a deep respect for data and studying, she says.
“There was no differentiation within the educational ask from the girls and boys. The tender conditioning was that engineering was not a profession path for girls, though gender equality was a conditioning within the household,” Dasgupta says.
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However when she didn’t get into her dream ardour medication regardless of being a category topper, her love for math and her adaptability led her to a brand new path. She accomplished her commencement in economics from St Xavier’s adopted by an MBA from IIM-Ahmedabad.
At the same time as she was doing her MBA, the 12 months 1994 marked a turning level for her. It was a time when the Indian capital markets had been opening as much as international institutional buyers (FIIs), remodeling the panorama. She joined JM Monetary quickly after, in 1995.
Dasgupta recounts her first boss and mentor, veteran funding banker Nimesh Kampani (chairman of JM Monetary Group), by no means differentiated between the genders for the M&A offers. “It was so much like how I used to be introduced up,” Dasgupta says.
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However she feels lucky to have had a number of senior girls leaders as function fashions, together with Radhika Haribhakti (a banking veteran previously at JM Morgan Stanley and from IIM-Ahmedabad), and Dipti Neelakantan (former group COO, JM Monetary).
It’s vital for girls to search out their means up, she says. “If they don’t seem to be there on the mid-level jobs, they don’t seem to be within the reckoning for the senior jobs. They don’t cling in there [enough]. Girls want to search out their function fashions and construct self-confidence from inside,” she says.
JM Monetary’s ECM (fairness capital market) closed 42 offers cumulatively elevating roughly ₹88,996 crore in 2024. Beneath Dasgupta’s management, the ECM group suggested on a variety of transactions, preliminary public choices, follow-on public presents, rights points, and certified institutional placements.
The 12 months was robust for JM Monetary in M&A and PE transactions with 17 offers value over ₹41,800 crore throughout varied sectors. It suggested Shriram Finance and different shareholders on the sale of Shriram Housing Finance to Warburg Pincus, marking the biggest all-cash buyout transaction within the reasonably priced housing phase.
It additionally suggested Advanta on its fundraise from Alpha Wave, which was the biggest PE fundraise within the agri & allied area in India. JM Monetary suggested SeQuent Scientific on its merger with Viyash Lifesciences and its subsidiaries, creating a singular platform with a management place within the Animal Healthcare area. It was concerned in advising JSW Infra on its acquisition of Navkar Corp, enabling the corporate to foray into logistics and different value-added companies.
Going forward, Dasgupta says the deal with 2025 will probably be to retain expertise and increase the funding banking group at JM Monetary. For 2025, she has set a powerful development goal of her enterprise phase at JM Monetary.
The group additionally hopes to develop its massive and mid-cap company clientele by 5 occasions to 2,000 within the subsequent seven years, Vishal Kampani, the non-executive vice chairman of the group, has stated, betting massive on the monetary and structured credit score companies.
Dasgupta is assured India is the place to take a position. “Within the final two to 3 years, personal fairness buyers have completed so many exits from Indian firms that they realised this can be a nation the place they’ll make investments and likewise become profitable,” she says. She is anticipating bigger M&A transactions and ECM offers throughout sectors resembling renewables, monetary companies, auto, auto elements, industrials and client well being care.
(This story seems within the 18 April, 2025 situation
of Forbes India. To go to our Archives, click here.)
