Sairam Mocherla

Executive Vice Chairman, Capital Fortunes Private Limited

Sairam Mocherla, a Fellow of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (FCA), is the Executive Vice Chairman of Capital Fortunes Private Limited. He was also on the Boards of leading companies of several sectors – Cement, Logistics, Power, Healthcare, Aluminium etc.

During his initial grooming in early 90’s as a partner of M Bhaskara Rao & Company, a respected chartered accountancy firm in South India, he was profoundly exposed to diverse areas of taxation, legal, commercial, accounting standards, auditing. He was responsible for executing many complex multi-faceted assignments mandated by large Nationalised Banks and leading corporate conglomerates.

As he was leading the delivery of client requirements, he recognised a pressing need for significantly higher value addition in the Indian business context as the economy was opening up and an irreversible process of liberalisation was initiated by the political leadership of India. He realised that the prerequisites for the chosen role play are acquisition of international flavour and management appreciation. He then proceeded to graduate in International Finance from The Joseph Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, USA.

After graduation he founded Capital Fortunes in 1996 with an aim to provide value added corporate finance interventions to Governments and private & public sector organisations. While the company was riding on the success of winning the trust & confidence of clients during early 2000’s, he realised that “focus” and “differentiation” were the mantras for sustainable value addition to clients. Instead of spreading the resources thin and achieving maximum impact, he chose the infrastructure sector – one of the key drivers of economic growth of the country – as the area of focus. He has envisioned being a preferred partner to State and Private Enterprises in identifying and delivering infrastructure projects in India through clearly identified engagement themes:

Work collaboratively (Development Partnership) with clients, stakeholders and key elements in the ecosystem to “deliver projects”

• Provide investment banking services in developing optimal financial structures and funding strategies with innovative means of risk capital deployment to maximise shareholder value of private enterprises
• Provide policy advisory to government organisations to enable private resources to serve public interest through PPP initiatives and reforms in state ownership structures
• Business partnering in emerging areas because of opening up of Indian economy and liberalisation

He has learnt from his experience that “arm’s length consulting” would not result in effective delivery of projects. He pioneered a unique “Development Partnership” engagement model built on sound principles to differentiate the services:

• Providing meaningful offerings that will enable the owners cross the next mile
• Drawing strengths from owners’ resolve while moderating with professional objectivity
• Avoiding conflicting situations
• Addressing limitations of professionals effectively

The unique delivery model resulted in significant success:

• Achievements: singular FDI in power sector – strategic partnership – since ENRON
• Achievement – PDS – overall energy footprint
• Achievement – Roads, tourism, urban infrastructure
• PPP and G&R