Our Human Capital
Satish Mehta
Founder & CEO
Satish’s experience spanning over 40 years in the areas of housing finance, consumer finance, business development, training, credit information and management consultancy has resulted in the creation of India’s first credit bureau – CIBIL, India’s first private sector mortgage lending institution – HDFC and he has extended invaluable expertise to the fledgling financial infrastructures of countries in South Asia and the Middle East.
Prior to founding Athena, Satish worked with the Quantum Group (CEO), Dun & Bradstreet Dubai (President – Financial Infrastructure & Credit Bureaus), Credit Information Bureau (India) Ltd – CIBIL (MD), HDFC (General Manager) and Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Limited (COO)
His expertise has been used in various countries, which were in the process of developing their financial infrastructure. Specifically, he successfully headed the team that provided the technical knowhow for credit bureaus in UAE, Egypt, Sri Lanka and Bhutan. He has performed extensive work for the World Bank Group in India, Bhutan, Botswana, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Sub-Saharan Africa (Ghana, Senegal, Ethiopia)
Satish was the founding Managing Director of CIBIL, India’s first credit information bureau – a joint venture between Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC), State Bank of India, Transunion and Dun & Bradstreet.
Prior to his responsibilities at CIBIL, Satish was General Manager – Business Development, at HDFC and was involved in various functions including business development, training, knowledge creation, consulting advisory services, due diligence for investments, entry strategies, projects for multi-lateral agencies, operational management, human resource management and loan syndication. He was also involved with / responsible for negotiations and closure of discussions with various international organizations to raise funds, obtain consultancy assignments and organise workshops. An additional responsibility was to manage the diligence and valuation leading to the investment by HDFC in housing finance companies in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and was on the Board of Directors of the Sri Lankan venture for a period of four years. Satish was responsible for the training and business development functions there. He was also responsible for HDFC’s initial foray in to education loans.
He was responsible for the business plan and joint venture that HDFC started with GE – USA. The joint venture, Countrywide consumer finance was in the business of giving consumer loans pan India.
In addition, Satish has worked closely as a consultant, delegate, faculty member with a number of international organizations like the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in Nepal, World Bank in Indonesia, Bank of Housing and Construction and Home Finance Company Limited in Ghana, Building Societies Institute in Australia, National Mortgage Institute in Fairfield, USA, The Building Societies Association, UK and GE Capital Corporation, USA.
He also authored an eBook for IFC – a guide to credit information in the Middle East and North Africa Region – a review of all aspects of credit information in 19 countries in the region. The same can be accessed here
By education he is a Chartered Accountant and a graduate in science with specialisation in statistics and economics. He is an avid reader and likes to listen to music.
Reeya Bharadwaj
Business Analyst
Reeya is a Business Analyst with Athena. She has over 5 years of experience in the financial sector and has been actively responsible and involved with lending & asset evaluation, divestments and restructuring of investments / assets and preparing credit information memorandums with due diligence and recommendations
She has worked on research projects involving Indian Real Estate, Affordable Housing, and Waste Management
At Athena Advisors she is involved with all our business verticals and is responsible for identification of business opportunities, preparing proposals and working of deliverables. Specifically she has worked on assignments for EY, Dun & Bradstreet and World Bank Group
Reeya is a Mumbai University Graduate in Management Studies and her interests include reading, swimming and discovering new shows on Netflix
Harshita Dave
Business Analyst
Harshita is a Business Analyst with Athena. She has experience in the Banking sector and has been actively responsible and involved in developing and managing portfolio of influencers like CA, Legal, PE handling the FDI and ODI transactions.
She was an intern with an investment and research firm where she worked on research projects like Target Identification in Beauty products Industry – Asia-Pacific/Europe/North America. Also, worked with Mumbai Grahak Panchayat on a research project.
At Athena Advisors she is involved with all our business verticals and is responsible for identification of business opportunities, preparing proposals and working of deliverables.
Harshita pursued her MBA from Indian Education Society and completed her M.Com. Also, she is a Mumbai University Graduate in Management Studies and her interests include watching Turkish serials and she is a music junkie.
