The Fund Management team comprises of seasoned and passionate investment professionals to deliver long term sustained compounding of capital to both Policyholders and Shareholders.

Mr. Akhilesh Gupta: Chief Investment Officer

Akhilesh has an extensive experience of over 30 years in managing investments in various asset classes such as Equities, Fixed Income, Foreign Exchange and Trade and Structures Finance. His core skills include Asset Allocation, Portfolio Construction, Asset and Liability Management to contribute to economic value and Governance. He had a successful stint with Aviva India as Associate Director and founding team member from 2002 to 2011 and rejoined Aviva India in 2021. Earlier he has worked as Chief Investment Officer with Reliance Nippon Life Insurance, Dundee Mutual Funds and Cargill India and has a track record of long-term compounding of capital.

He is a member of NSE – Index Committee and an alumnus of Institute of Management Studies, BHU and IIM-A. He has been credited with the ET – S&P Micropal award for the best performance of Dundee Liquidity Fund for FY 2000.

Mr. Vivek Priye Verma: Head – Equity  

Vivek brings more than 15 years of experience in Fund Management and Equity Research. He is responsible for asset allocation and portfolio construction to deliver sustained long term out-performance along with maintaining highest standards in terms of Governance. Vivek holds MBA (Finance)andis a Gold Medalist in MA Economics.

Prior to joining Aviva India, he has worked as Fund Manager with Canara HSBC Life Insurance, Head of Research at Star Union Dai-ichi Life Insurance and gained substantial insight as equity research analyst with CIMB, Royal Bank of Scotland and Edelweiss Securities.

Mr. Nitin Garg: Fund Manager - Fixed Income

Nitin holds a Bachelors Degree in Economics and PGDM in Business Management. He brings more than 15 years of experience in Fixed Income Market. He is responsible for managing Unit Linked Fixed Income Funds along with maintaining highest standards in terms of Governance and fundamental research.

Prior to joining Aviva India, he was part of Fixed Income team with Max Life Insurance Company Limited.

Gurpreet Singh Arora: AVP / Assistant Fund Manager - Equity

Gurpreet is a Post-graduate in Management with dual specialization in Finance and Insurance and Banking from MSRIM, Bangalore. Healso holds a PG Diploma in Securities Law from GLC Mumbai.

A consummate investment professional with a firm belief in fundamental research and value investing, he carries over 15 years of multi - cycle experience in equity research across sectors and has also been exposed to active fund management. He is managing Unit Linked Thematic Funds: PSU, Infrastructure and Small Hybridsand is also responsible for equity research.

Prior to joining Aviva India, he has worked with Quest PMS, family office of Mr. NarotamSekhsaria and Bajaj group treasury.

Mr. Sumit Singhania: AVP / Equity Research Analyst

Sumit holds a Masters degree in Commerce from Mumbai University. He brings in more than 11 years of experience in equity research across sectors. He is responsible for Equity Research.

Prior to joining Aviva India, he worked with Nepean Capital, Daiwa Portfolio Advisory, DAM Capital andNirmal Bang Equities.

Ms. Swapna Kamat: AVP/ Equity Research Analyst

Swapna holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Business Management with specialization in Finance from Chetana’s Institute ofManagement and Research, Mumbai. She brings in more than 15 years of cross-cycle experience in equity research across sectors.

Prior to joining Aviva India, she worked as an equity analyst with NarotamSekhsaria’s Family Office.

Mr. Dharmesh Shah: AVP / Equity Trader

Dharmesh Shah holds MIFA (Masters of Investment and Financial Analysis) by ICFAI University and did Bachelors in Electronics Engineering from University of Mumbai. He brings to the team 18 years of rich experience in equities and derivative trading. He is responsible for Equity Trading.

Prior to joining Aviva India, he has worked with Taurus Mutual Fund.

Mr. Mandar Pandeshwar: Senior Manager / Assistant Fund Manager 

Mandar is an MBA (Finance), and a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA)) from CFA Institute, USA.

He brings 11 years of experience in treasury including 6 years of experience in fixed income tradingto the team. He is responsible for managing Traditional Fixed Income Funds.

Prior to joining Aviva India, he worked with Saraswat Co-Operative Bank Ltd.

Mr. Parth Bagul: Manager: Fixed Income Trader 

Parth holds an MBA Degree in Finance from Sydenham Institute of Management Studies, Research and Entrepreneurship Education (SIMSREE), Mumbai. He has a relevant industry experience of 3 years in fixed income and derivatives dealing. He is responsible for Fixed Income Trading at Aviva India.

Prior to joining Aviva India, he worked as a Research Associate and Derivatives Dealer at ICAP IL India Pvt Ltd

Ms. Saloni Doshi: Management Trainee 

Saloni is a Chartered Accountant and a B.Com Graduate from Amravati University. Her core skills include financial analysis, industry research, and market forecasting.

She is responsible for Equity Research in the team.

Equity Strategy:
Aviva follows a conservative and consistent long-term investment approach for security selection. The focus is to invest in quality businesses with sound business models at reasonable valuations and identifies leaders and emerging leaders of sectors.

Our investment rationale:

• We seek to invest in companies that, in our view, have sustainability of business growth and are trading at reasonable valuations.
• Our belief that a stock's price reflects the value of the underlying company makes us patient investors and not market timers.
• We consider the company's competitive advantage and its prospects along with a host of quantitative factors.
• We aim to capture long-term business cycles while investing in securities. We follow a disciplined research, which will help identify new trends early.
• With this approach, we generate consistent investment returns over the long-term through the power of compounding.

Our evaluation of potential equity investments is based on:

• Some of the evaluation criteria include sustainability of business growth, value creation and the ability to generate free cash flows and higher Return on Equity (RoE).
• Quality of Management in terms of its vision, cost and innovation competence, along with business ethics and integrity.
• We try to balance between growth and value investments with bottoms up and top down approaches depending on business cycles and other macro-economic factors
• Risk is a very important factor of our evaluation criteria. We employ various business valuation techniques, scenario analysis and volatility analysis to ascertain if it is a reasonably safe investment, with an aim to reduce the risk element. 

Fixed Income Strategy:
We invest exclusively in top quality, sovereign bonds and corporate bonds with AAA rating. Global and domestic macro-economic variables of growth, inflation, currency variations and liquidity are considered to determine the long-term and short-term outlook. The portfolio's tenure is then adjusted according to our expectation of interest rate changes. We primarily focus on maintaining excellent credit quality, evaluating a company's ability to pay interest before investing.

Our Internship Program is designed for hiring the best minds from the best B schools in India. The whole B-School hiring journey starts with our Campus engagement program. We invite candidates from tier 1 B-Schools across the country & award the summer internship interviews to the selected entries. Through this platform, every year, we hire a batch of summer interns for projects under various functions including Marketing, HR, Operations, Strategy & Sales.

Facts & stories from our 300-year history

Our India legacy

We have the distinction of being one of the first insurance companies to set up business in India. Here is a glimpse of our rich history in India.

Rewards and Recognition is integral to Aviva’s DNA. The organization firmly believes that it is through the continuous superlative performance demonstrated by our employees we have been able to attain our current status in the Life Insurance space within India

Movers and Shakers & CEO Award
Both platforms have nomination through peer, supervisor or cross functional teams on value demonstration while achieving desired outcome.
CEO Club
The nominations are through leadership team members on value demonstration and decision is taken through subsequent qualifying rounds.
Exemplary Leadership
The nominations are through peers or leadership team one down which are evaluated by the CEO and Group HR team.
Long Service Awards
These awards appreciate the loyalty and contribution of our employees towards Aviva and recognize employees for continuity of service over a number of years.

As an organization, we have a commitment to ensure growth and development of all employees. We feel that it is important that our employees construct their own career growth plan. Our Learning philosophy revolves around the key theme “Own Your Growth”.

Workshop and Trainings 
To facilitate the right mix of Capability development within Organization, based on the feedback from employees, Managers and Function Heads and detailed need analysis, the learning interventions are built around a 5-pillar structure- 

• Personal effectiveness 
• Managerial effectiveness 
• Technical expertise 
• Leadership development 
• Organizational effectiveness 

E Learning
Employees at Aviva are encouraged for anywhere, anytime learning through our internet based E-Learning module. These globally recognized, well researched modules add to learning experience and come handy as byte modules. This platform has ensured that learning opportunities reach to the remotest of the locations and every Aviva employee gets the opportunity to learn and grow. 

Education Policy
Aviva believes in the philosophy of continuous learning and provides support to its employees to undertake education courses in order to enhance their skill sets and therefore arrive at a position to contribute better to the overall organizational agenda. 

Online Library
Our employees in 7 cities have access to online books library. The interested employees can select a book and order it online. This is a Company sponsored initiative and gives the users access to different books related to Management, Leadership, Spirituality, Life Skills and technical domain etc. 

At Aviva, we value you as an individual and constantly help you evolve further- both personally and professionally.  We regularly organize a number of events and activities to engage our employees as well as their families.

Aviva Sports League – An opportunity to recognize sportsmen/women at Aviva and promote camaraderie.
Employees’ day out – Sponsored team outings across regions focusing on team bonding and celebrations. 
Aviva Carnival – Annual event focusing on a two way agenda - Team Bonding & Fund raising for charity.
Kid’s day – An annual ritual wherein the employee’s kids are invited to the Aviva premises, helps develop a stronger connect between employees’ families and the workplace
Thank You Week – An opportunity to thank colleagues, direct reportees & reporting managers for making a difference to people’s lives
Women’s Day celebration – Recognizing our women employees for their work contribution.

At Aviva we take pride in the manner we conduct ourselves. It is our constant endeavor to make our communities better through collective action. This spirit of ‘making a difference’ is characteristic of our DNA globally.
The following figures are testimony to the impact we have created globally (since 2009)-

We believe that each and every child should have access to education because education is insurance for a better life. As a global insurer, making a contribution to society really matters to us and we have a responsibility to help the most excluded individuals in our communities – and few are more excluded than street-connected children and young people.

To know more about our work with communities in India Click here. 

The view from the top

We’ve got bright ambitions for our future. But to get to where we’re going, we need the right people on board. So what are our plans? And who are we looking for? Hear what our CEO, Trevor, and our CHRO Amit, have to say about the importance of our people.