Shantanu Nalavadi

Bio

Shantanu joined New Silk Route Advisors in April 2007 and focuses on private equity opportunities in the Indian sub-continent out of the Mumbai office. Shantanu was previously at Walt Disney Company, responsible for its India strategy, business development and growth initiatives across all of its businesses including media network, studio, parks and entertainment, retail and consumer products. While there, he helped create Disney’s blueprint for India and successfully executed its strategy including distribution of Disney channels and movies, acquisition of a local children’s channel (Hungama TV), movie co-production deals with leading Indian producers / studios, and acquisition of a stake in UTV. He was also instrumental in launching Disney’s foray into the high growth consumer retail segment. During his period he also led a team to explore opportunities in the high growth pre-school education space. Before joining Disney, Shantanu was with Star TV (subsidiary of NewsCorp) for five years (2000-2005). In Star TV, Shantanu was responsible for identifying and delivering on strategic growth opportunities for Star TV’s Indian media business, through M&A, green field projects & JVs. He successfully executed Star’s foray into the electronic news space, local Hindi and regional language television space, FM radio and local movie co-production. In addition, Shantanu was also responsible for Star India’s television channel and content distribution business outside of India targeted at the huge Indian diaspora. In 2004, Shantanu was asked to take charge of the entire TSkyB entertainment offering on the platform which besides cable channels included specialty channels, games, audio and inter-active content. Before joining Star, Shantanu was with ANZ Investment Bank and worked across project finance (financial advisory and debt placement) and corporate finance (acquisitions, divestitures, mergers and JV advisory) businesses. Shantanu is a qualified Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, and did his articleship from Arthur Andersen, India.