Meet the team
Investment Team
Parag Shah
Mr. Parag Shah is Founder and Partner of Amara Partners, an early-stage Private Equity fund. Amara Partners provides growth capital to businesses and supports entrepreneurs in business transformation, innovation, change management and institutionalization.
Prior to this venture, in a career spanning over 24 years, Parag has held various positions with the Mahindra Group. He has extensive experience in building new businesses, startups, turn arounds, joint ventures, and mergers & acquisitions. In his last role, Parag was Member of the Group Executive Board and Head, Mahindra Accelo. Parag was one of the chief architects and Managing Partner of Mahindra Partners, the 1 Bn USD Private Equity and Venture Capital division of the Group which was responsible for incubation, turnaround and investments in several sectors like Cleantech, Retail, Boat Manufacturing, Consulting, Media, Healthcare, Conveyor Systems, AI & Analytics. He was an Executive Committee member of various councils of Mahindra Learning University. He was the Group lead for business representation in Israel.
Piyush Soonee
Piyush co-founded Amara Partners in 2023 along with Parag. Piyush has been investing over the last 12 years of his 14-year professional journey. Prior to starting Amara, he was a Director at Omidyar Network India. He has invested across sectors such as SaaS, services, real estate and healthcare and across stages, from seed to growth stage companies. He has taken active board seats in many of his portfolio companies and drives value through growth interventions (refreshed GTMs, acquisitions), margin expansion (pricing and cost interventions) as well as capital structure optimization. He has also worked an an investment professional at Mahindra Partners for close to 5 years.
Piyush holds a Bachelor’s of Engineering degree in Electronics & Communications from PESIT, Bangalore as well as a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM Ahmedabad.
Mitesh Shah
Prior to joining Amara, Mitesh was the FP&A Head at Mahindra Logistics where he was responsible for managing financial planning, budgeting, MIS, stakeholder reporting, analysis, re-structuring, automation, new investments for MLL and its subsidiaries. Before that, he was a part of the investment team at Mahindra Partners, gaining 12 years of investing experience. Mitesh was the Board observer at Mahindra Susten, Mahindra Waste to Energy, Centre for Sight, Mahindra Teqo, Mahindra Solarize and Mahindra Consulting. He was deputed as a CFO for some of the portfolio businesses of Mahindra Partners. He was also the CEO of Mahindra Engineering & Chemical Products Ltd, an office supplies trading company within the Group.
Mitesh is a qualified Chartered Accountant and a commerce graduate from University of Mumbai.
Vidhi Zaveri
Prior to joining Amara, Vidhi was part of the Investment Team at Tomorrow Capital, where she worked across sectors like Healthcare, Consumer-tech, Agri-tech, & Warehousing amongst others. She has also worked in Stride Ventures, a Venture Debt fund, where she was part of transactions pertaining to working capital debt and supply chain financing to growth stage start-ups such Infra Market, Fashinza, Zetwerk, Reshamandi, etc.
She holds a Masters in Management degree from Bocconi University and Bachelor in Accounting & Finance from Mithibai College, Mumbai.
Bhavya Poddar
Prior to joining Amara, Bhavya worked as an Investment Banker at Goldman Sachs in their Hong Kong office. She has also worked at Canara HSBC Life Insurance in their actuarial team.
She holds a Master of Business Administration from IIM Calcutta and Bachelor of Business Administration from St. Xavier's College Kolkata.
Aditya Mody
Aditya graduated from Babson college in 2019 with a Bsc in Business Administration, Finance Concentration. During his college days he was also a founding team member of Contrary, a university focused venture fund. After graduation, he completed numerous short stints at various buy side firms before settling into a dual role at his Family Business in Chemicals and as a Venture Partner at Venture Catalysts. He spends his free time watching a variety of sports and reading on political changes across major regions. His core interest remains on tech enabled solutions to everyday problems faced by industry and consumers.
Functional Team
Jessica Patel
Jessica brings work experience of over two decades of providing comprehensive support to the MD Office and Leadership team in an MNC setup. She has worked with companies like Tata Infotech and Heinz India Pvt. Ltd. Prior to joining Amara, she was associated with Zydus Wellness Products Limited.
She is a B. Com graduate along with an Executive Secretarial Diploma from Sir J J College of Commerce. In addition, she has successfully completed her Marketing Management Diploma and Post Graduate Program in Human Resources Management from the Welingkar Institute of Management Development & Research.
Riddhi Lodaya
Prior to joining Amara, Riddhi worked in a Chartered Accountancy firm for 3 years.
She has completed her graduation in the field of Accounting and Finance (BAF) from Narsee Monjee college of Commerce and Economics, Vile Parle
- INVESTMENT TEAM
- ADVISORY TEAM
- AMARA NETWORK
Parag Shah
Parag Shah is the Managing Partner of Mahindra Partners, the 1bn USD Private Equity and Venture Capital division of the 20.7bn USD Mahindra Group. In a career spanning over 20 years, Parag has
held various positions with the Mahindra Group.
He is a Director on several Mahindra Group & portfolio companies such as Mahindra Logistics (Listed), Mahindra Intertrade, Mahindra Susten, Mahindra Vehicle Manufacturers, Mahindra Marine,
Mahindra Retail, Mahindra Consulting Engineers & New Delhi Centre for Sight. He is the Co-Chairman of the Group Diversity Council & is an Executive Committee member of various councils of Mahindra
Learning University. He is the Group lead for business representation in Israel. He is also an Independent Director on the board of HDFC AMC Ltd.
Prior to his current assignment, Parag worked for the Office of the Vice Chairman & Managing Director and was involved in New Business Development and strategy for the Group. He was also Chief
Executive Officer of Officemartindia Ltd., a consulting & e-commerce company within the Group. Before joining the Mahindra Group in 1999, Parag was Managing Director of Systems Marketing India
Pvt. Ltd., a private business with interests in Manufacturing, Investment Banking and Trading. He holds a BS Degree in Computer Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology with special
electives in Psychology and Manufacturing Technology. He is also a graduate of the General Management Program from Harvard Business School.
Parag has been recognized by Economic Times & Spencer Stuart as India’s Top 40 Business Leaders under the age of 40 and by India Today as ‘Leaders of Tomorrow’ in their anniversary issue. He is
affiliated with various NGO associations such as Sabarkanta Relief Committee and S&G Charitable Trust. He has also been a Founder Director of “Executives Without Borders”, an NGO based in USA.
Rafique Malik
