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| Prasad, popularly called SV by colleagues in the industry, is an old hand in the mutual fund business with nearly a decade of experience. |
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| A cricket freak, Prasad's first innings was with JM Mutual Fund - one of the first private sector entrants in the fund industry - as its president and chief executive officer. |
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| His second innings began in August 1998 when he took over as CEO of Zurich India Mutual Fund, which was sold to HDFC Mutual Fund earlier this year. During his tenure with Zurich the fund house grew rapidly and became the fifth largest private sector fund in the country. |
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| "I am delighted to join a fund that ranks among the top five mutual funds in the country," says Prasad about his new job at Birla Sun Life. |
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| A joint venture between the Aditya Birla Group and Sun Life Financial Services of Canada, Birla Sun Life Asset Management currently has total assets under management of close to Rs 9,000 crore spread across about 4.25 lakh investors. |
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| So what's Prasad's grand plan for Birla Mutual? No doubt he would like to take Birla Mutual to greater heights than HDFC, which bagged Zurich, but Prasad would prefer to put first things first. |
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| "The biggest challenge is to have the right amount of creativity and entrepreneurship along with a proper institutional structure," says Prasad. |
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| That combo worked wonders at Zurich, and probably helped Prasad grab the Birla challenge. The Birla fund is believed to have been more entrepreneurial than process-driven in its formative high-flying days. |
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| Prasad loves sports. He frequents the gym at least four-five times a week without fail to 'keep fit'. His other interests - a pretty long list - include music, reading and travel. |
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| His favourite cities are London and New York. His holiday spots: Switzerland and Kashmir. |
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| "I listen to all kinds of music and normally read three books simultaneously - on philosophy, on investments and fiction." The music his fund investors would like to hear, however, is the jingle of higher returns on investments. |
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| RUSHABH SHETH is not one of those whizkids from Wharton or Stanford. He didn't even come from a business school, something one would normally expect to be a prerequisite for a fund manager. |
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| Then what made Kotak Mutual choose Sheth as its head of equities? (Sheth is not even related to the Sheths of GE Shipping, friends of the Kotaks!). |
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| In the world of investments, it does not really matter which school you go to. The best teacher is experience. And Sheth, 31, claims he has learnt just about everything on the job. |
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| Sheth's greatest inspiration: Asit Koticha, the chief of ASK Raymond James, where he spent a large part of his career in learning the ropes. "It's been a very enriching experience working with him" says Sheth. |
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| Sheth's investment philosophy is basically centred around buying into good quality businesses. The second most important thing is the ability to understand and appreciate the difference between the 'price' and the 'value' of a stock. |
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| "Understanding the dynamics of a business and the price that you should pay for the stock is critical," says Sheth. |
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| Like most other market players, Sheth is bullish on stocks right now. "We are only beginning to see the effect of some mega trends in the Indian economy. We are yet to understand the full impact." |
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| Sheth is a tennis and swimming enthusiast and loves reading and adventure sports. |
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| But he hardly comes across as a sport when it comes to matching media expectations. He declined to be shot on camera in sports attire! |
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