Our Team

Swapnil Pawar

Founder

Swapnil is a tech and finance expert with an experience of over 20 years. He is passionate about using technology for incentivising and financing a more sustainable economy.
At ASQI, he focuses on product design, sustainability research and business development. Swapnil is also a major proponent of decentralized economy and had led the development of Newrl - the layer-1 blockchain developed by ASQI team.
In his earlier role, he was a portfolio manager for India quantitative equity strategy at Engineers Gate (a US-headquartered Global Quant Hedge Fund).
Over his career, Swapnil has built multiple businesses from the ground up - including a wealth management startup, asset management business of a brokerage firm and India business of a global quant hedge fund.

He started his career with The Boston Consulting Group in India.
Swapnil has authored two books on Macroeconomics - Anatomy of Froth – Demystifying the Global Financial Crisis (2010) and Rethinking Money and Capital – New Economics for QE, Stimulus, Negative Interest, and Cryptocurrencies (2022).
He is a graduate from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (2002) and post-graduate from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (2004).

Advisory Team

Dr. Sudhir Kumar Goel

He is a retired IAS Officer who has occupied various senior positions in the state of Maharashtra, mostly linked to the field of Agriculture & Cooperation, including 7 years as Agriculture Commissioner; 6 years as Commissioner and Secretary, Cooperatives; Director-General, special project tackling suicide among farmers, Vidarbha; Principal Secretary and then Additional Chief Secretary of Agriculture, responsible for attracting an investment of US$ 1 billion a year in the State of Maharashtra in the field of integrated value chains. Extensive experience working on various projects funded by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and International Fund for Agriculture Development.

Rishikesh Trivedi

Rishikesh has more than a decade of well-rounded experience in multiple technology companies across varied functions like strategy, marketing, sales, process re-engineering, internal systems, business excellence model framework – across multiple cultures – across multiple regions. Driven by the passion to enable technology companies accelerate their growth for their operations globally while maintaining lower costs for their Go-to-Market, he is creating a framework for Digital Transformation in the GTM aspects of a B2B Tech Companies. The framework has centres’ of excellence to provide Best in Class services for Strategic Insights, Demand Generation, Channels & Alliances, MarTech led Execution, delivered via Enabler ONE, iSOURCe, AugPlat Technologies, and Eywa Media.

Arun Pandhi

Arun Pandhi has been a development professional with a specialization in water and agriculture with an focusing on climate change and sustainability in the rural sector. Over the last 30 years, he has created and nurtured a number of initiatives and institutions within India across the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Orissa, Punjab, Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Himachal, UP, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Tripura, Arunachal, Nagaland and Mizoram) in the realm of agriculture, water, dairy, rural development and hockey. Arun Pandhi has been on the board of several of the organizations and companies seeded by the Tata Trusts including CInI, Jamshedpur; Livolink Foundation, Bhubaneswar; NEIDA, Kohima; CML, Guwahati; Himmotthan, Dehradun; RGR Cell, Ludhiana; CMF, Jaipur; CSPC, Ahmedabad; Kalike, Bangalore; NTHA, Jamshedpur; and DHANII, Jaipur.

Manish Agarwal

Manish is one of the few professional CEOs in India who has successfully taken a private company public, leading Nazara Technologies to achieve the 3rd highest ever subscribed IPO in the history of IPOs. Nazara remains the only listed gaming company in the Indian markets, with Manish at the helm creating enormous shareholder value, driving the company’s peak market cap from USD 50 million in 2016 to USD 1.2 billion. He has played a pivotal role in shaping the gaming regulatory framework as a member of the AVGC committee, FICCI gaming committee convenor, and former Co-Chair of the IMAI gaming committee. Manish continues to engage with the government at both the central and state levels to influence the evolving web 3 regulatory landscape. As a member of the Skill Development Council, he is deeply passionate about upskilling, creating employment, and promoting entrepreneurship. An avid mentor to startup founders and an angel investor, Manish co-founded the syndicate “Founder Room Capital” on angel investment platforms such as AL and LV. As a seasoned board member, he has collaborated with multiple founders to create enterprise value, with a strong focus on quality revenue and corporate governance. His passion lies in solving multi-dimensional problems in emerging consumer tech spaces, while repetitive tasks bore the “kid” in him. An alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad and NIT Warangal, Manish is committed to fostering a culture of employment generation among his fellow alums, dedicating resources at his disposal to support this vision.

Bipin Kumar Singh

Bipin Kumar Singh comes with 17+ years of successful investment banking experience of adding value to customers’ portfolios, and acting as their protector and personal knowledge center when it comes to wealth management. As co-founder of Wealth Insight, a financial services and venture capital organization, he helps individuals in mapping out a secure financial future. Bipin works on providing tailor-made solutions and helps promoters of firms in raising funds. He specializes in empowering businesses, promoters, and executives at all management levels in making informed decisions for driving growth. He offers guidance on managing personal financial assets, establishing clear boundaries to safeguard family wealth from business uncertainties, and developing thorough estate and succession plans.

Palak Nanjani

Chief Financial Officer

Palak Nanjani has over 15 years of experience in the Indian Capital Market, specializing in wealth management, asset management, and product research across asset classes such as debt, equity, and alternates, including structures like PMS and AIFs. She has played a key role in product development for innovative structures in real estate investments and debt syndication.
Throughout her career, she has demonstrated efficiency in problem-solving and a solution-oriented approach, working with TATA Capital and Karvy Private Wealth to support business development teams, and at Scient Capital and AK Capital to implement and monitor innovative debt structures.
At ASQI, she manages corporate compliance and operations, overseeing compliance, accounting, audit, payroll processing, banking, and related matters. She drafts and executes legal documents, negotiates with vendors, and oversees general business operations.

Kousthub Raja

Chief Technology Officer

Kousthub is a graduate from National Institute of Technology, Calicut Prior to joining ASQI, Kousthub worked for Goldman Sachs as an Analyst in Investing & Lending technology.
At Goldman Sachs, he built various systems such as an automated trade document signing system, automatic pricing and settlements, reconciliation system for loans, and an automated trade upload system.
Kousthub is an expert in workflow automation, software process optimization and data mining.