Aakash Desai is the CIO & Head of Private Credit strategy at 360 ONE Alternates Asset Management. He manages an AUM of over $1.5Bn across private credit and various fixed income strategies and is responsible for identifying growth opportunities to augment scale in the business.
Having worked in Asian and European markets, Aakash brings over two decades of deep and diverse experience in Wholesale & Institutional Financial services and a high degree of specialisation in the areas of Corporate and Structured Finance, Syndication & Capital Markets across key global financial markets.
Prior to 360 ONE, Aakash was a part of the senior management and founding team of Clix Capital (ex-GE Capital). He joined Clix with overall balance sheet responsibility in his role as Head of Corporate and Structured Finance business & Treasurer. He was responsible for origination, credit structuring and risk management for the corporate credit business , in addition to managing all aspects of fund raising, ALM and risk management within the Clix Group Treasury.
Prior to Clix, Aakash was Managing Director and Regional Head- South Asia for Corporate Finance at Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) where he spent 4 years driving the Corporate Finance and Loan Syndication businesses for India and South Asian markets with a focus on the build out the INR financing franchise at SCB.
Prior to SCB, Aakash spent 13 years at ICICI Bank India and UK setting up various new businesses, products and revenue streams across India and offshore markets. In his last role at ICICI Bank as Head – Financial Institutions & Syndications Group, he was responsible for all domestic fund raising, debt capital markets financing and managing senior banking and investor relationships with all Indian financial institutions. From 2003-2009, Aakash worked at ICICI Bank UK responsible for structuring and underwriting functions within the M&A financing business and was responsible for conceptualizing, originating and building the emerging markets credit business for 6+ years.
Aakash was the Chairman of the India Chapter of the Asia Pacific Loans Market Association, which is responsible for enhancing depth and scope of loan markets in India and adopting global best practices.