Our Team

Piyush Akhaja

Founder & Managing Partner

Piyush has over 15 years of experience of working in business valuation, sell-side & buy-side M&A advisory and equity & debt fund raising assignments across industries. He has worked on several bespoke business valuation assignments and has provided investment research & analytics support to several investment bankers, private equity, management consulting firms and leading corporations across the globe. In the valuation and investment research, he worked as an investment banking analyst serving clients with valuation, investment research, deal support and portfolio valuation services. He has also led various M&A and fund raising transactions helping clients securing funding at various stages and unlocking the value at different stages of their life cycle through M&A, IPO and secondary sale transactions.

Before founding HiVal Advisors, he was heading the Valuation department at Deloitte and Sikich. Prior to that, he has led Valuation and investment banking teams at RBSA Valuation Advisors, Sutherland Global Services, S&P Global and Acuity Knowledge Partners.

Piyush has been training and mentoring several start-ups and corporations and working as an independent consultant with various start-up incubation centres to assist them solve complex business problems.

Mahit Puri

Director

Mahit has over 14 years of experience in Debt Syndication, Investment Banking, and Business Valuation, working with sell-side and buy-side clients across the globe. His expertise spans across diversified sectors, including consumer durables, food & beverages, pharmaceuticals & healthcare, real estate, and more.

He has played a key role in structuring and executing debt syndication transactions, Valuation Assignments, securing funding for businesses at various stages, and advising clients on mergers & acquisitions, and IPOs. His experience includes working on valuation assignments and providing deal support, investment research, and financial analysis to investment bankers, private equity firms, and corporations.

Mahit has extensive experience in the middle east where he was responsible for setting up of office In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and managing operations in the region Before being a part of HiVal Advisors, Mahit held leadership roles at Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank, and RBSA Advisors, where he contributed significantly to financial advisory, credit structuring, and valuation services.

Neerav Gala

Head, Equity Research

Neerav brings in 18+ years of valuation experience across industries and geographies. Prior to setting up Artoval Advisors, he set up the valuation practice at PERCH. Prior to this, he was heading the Equity Research practice at Sutherland, a boutique research firm, wherein he has managed teams of 20+ analysts. His clienteles were elite Investment Banks, Brokerage Houses, Fund Managers and large Consulting Firms. Prior to Sutherland, he was working with Crisil, largest credit rating agency in India and subsidiary of S&P. He was responsible for their equity research space and have significantly grown the engagements. Prior to this, he was working with Morgan Stanley, one of premier US Investment Banking institution, wherein he was responsible for cross-border M&A deals. Prior to this he has done his internship with ICICI bank, one of the largest private sector banks in India wherein he was part of credit risk management team.

He is Chartered Accountant from Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Registered Valuer from IBBI, FMVA from CFI and Commerce Graduate from Mumbai University, India. Additionally, he is also an active trainer for CA, CFA and other finance professional courses. He is associated with several educational institutes to provide training in the finance field.

In his short free time, he doesn’t miss an opportunity of cycling and solving complex arithmetic and logical riddles. In longer one, he travels to explore the various facets of life.

Deepak Prashar

Head, Credit Research

Deepak has more than 14 years of experience working for leading organizations like Infosys, Genpact and EY. In his career, he held leadership roles serving various bulge bracket banks and asset managers across key areas such as Fund Finance, Lender Finance, private equity, Leveraged Finance, and structured products. Driven by a passion for building high-performing teams and businesses, he co-founded Synco with a commitment to fostering a firm rooted in people, ethics, and innovation. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics (Honors) and MBA from Symbiosis International University.

Arpi Akhaja

Partner

Arpi has over 12 years of experience in the finance analysis & planning, reporting and financial advisory space and was earlier associated with CitiGroup, eClerx Service and S&P Global Market Intelligence (formally known as SNL financials). She managed a team of 10+ analysts handling institutional clients group operations (ICG) and technology teams. She has expertise in financial planning & analysis, MIS reporting, data analytics and data management to enable clients to make informed decisions.

Worked across teams and stakeholders to standardize and automate existing processes to achieve continuous improvement and efficiency. She has an MBA, Finance from Globsyn Business School and Commerce graduate from Gujarat University. Her interests include craft work and reading and hobbies include travelling and outdoor adventure activities.

Disha Kotadiya

Senior Analyst

Disha has nearly 4 years of core valuation and investment research experience. She leads all valuation engagements and has sector-agnostic, asset-class-agnostic and geography-agnostic experience. She has a great hold over detailed and complex KPI-driven financial modeling and business valuations across all major sectors. She has a rich experience in handling valuation assignments for M&A transactions, regulatory purposes such as fund raising, transfer of ownership, Purchase Price Allocations under various Indian and international laws. She has also performed Valuation of Intangibles such as Brands, Software, Contracts to assist in financial reporting purposes and has also successfully closed complex valuation engagements like ESOP and Warrants valuation. She has a good command over preparation of valuation reports, pitchbooks, investor memorandum and financial feasibility reports.

She is a Chartered Accountant finalist from Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Gujarat University, India.

Her interests include reading articles related to finance and hobbies include travelling, cycling, hiking and adventure outdoor activities.

Amisha Borsaniya

Analyst

Amisha has expertise in buy-side & sell side M&A advisory, financial modelling, valuation, fundraising activities and feasibility studies across various industries. Her areas of expertise include the preparation of financial modelling, investor memorandum, pitch books, company profiles, industry studies and economics studies. She is also proficient with renowned financial advisory databases used in M&A advisory.

She is a B.Com graduate and MBA, Finance from Saurashtra University. In addition, she is pursuing the ACCA qualification.

She loves to listen to music, reading novels and travelling & exploring new places.