Board of directors
Associated with CARE Ratings since 2000, Mehul Pandya took over as Managing Director & CEO of the company on July 29, 2022, after serving as an Executive Director since 2017. Over the years, Mr Pandya has successfully incubated and nurtured the company’s business in India and abroad. He is a member of the Board of Directors for all subsidiaries of CARE Ratings while also serving on the Board of the Association of Credit Rating Agencies in Asia (ACRAA). A technocrat with a management background, Mr Pandya is the Chairman of the Special Projects and Publications Committee and Co-Chairman of the Training and Programs Committee of ACRAA. He is a CFA charter holder from CFA Institute, USA. Over the years, he has attended various leadership programmes at IIMA and the High Potentials Leadership Programme at Harvard Business School as well. Prior to joining CARE Ratings, he worked with a state-level financial institution in Gujarat for about four years and was instrumental in setting up an in-house credit rating cell for the screening of lending proposals. He has worked as a Consultant for the Asian Development Bank and conducted various training programmes on credit risk analysis in India and abroad.
Dr. Atreya is the Director of CRNL and the Managing Director of Banking, Finance and Insurance Institute of Nepal (BFIN). Prior to joining BFIN, Dr. Atreya holds over 30 years of professional experiences in various capacities in Nepal Rastra Bank, the central bank of Nepal. He served as Executive Director at Micro Credit Promotion and Supervision Department, where he was mainly responsible for supervising the microfinance institutions, financial intermediaries and assigned cooperatives authorized to do limited banking activities. He also served as National Project Director for implementing UNNATI – Access to Finance Project in collaboration with UNCDF and Government of Denmark. He also served as Chief Executive Officer of Nepal Bank Limited, a commercial bank, for a period over three years. He did serve with UNDP projects in the Republic of Maldives, Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau. He holds PhD degree in Public Management Reform from Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia, and MBA (India) and MPA (Nepal
Ms, Nehal Shah is the Diretor of CRNL. She is Head – Compliance, Legal and Secretarial at CARE Ratings. She has an extensive experience of 17 years in the areas of Secretarial, Legal, Compliance, Audit, AML, Risk and Corporate Governance Management, and strategic planning. Prior to this, she was Head – Compliance, Legal & Company Secretary with YES Asset Management (India) Ltd. (An Asset Management Arm of YES Bank). She also worked in global and domestic conglomerate such as Deutsche Bank Group, Fidelity India, Aditya Birla Group. She has worked on various key assignments as getting regulatory approval for business licenses, products, audit & inspection, restructuring, Merger & Amalgamation etc. She is a visiting faculty at various institute such as NISM, GLC law college, Compliance Academy. She was named as “Top 10 Chief Compliance Officers in India in 2020” by CEO Insights Magazine. Nehal holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce from Mumbai University, Associate Company Secretary (ACS) from Institute of Company Secretaries of India, LLB from Mumbai University, Post-Graduation in Securities Laws from Government Law College, Mumbai
Mr. Bharat Prasad Poudyal is an Independent Director of CRNL. He has been associated with Government of Nepal for more than 3 decades and has held different positions (Under Secretary and Joint Secretary etc) in various government departments, ministries etc. Currently, he is providing consultancy services and carry out various research studies as a team member in the area of Public Financial Management and Organizational capacity development in Nepal. He is a Post-Graduate in Economics from Tribhuwan University, Nepal.
Management
Mr. Achin Nirwani is the Chief Executive Officer of CRNL. He holds Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from University of Punjab, Chandigarh and is a qualified Chartered Accountant from The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
A dynamic professional with more than 18+ years of experience in the Credit Rating, Banking and financial sector. He has been associated with CARE Ratings Limited, India (CARE) for the major part of his career. Prior to joining CARE, he was associated with leading banks and corporate houses in various capacities. He has also undertaken assignments with various departments of Government of India for developing the methodologies of grading education institutions for skill development, financial and operating efficiency rating for MSME etc. During these years of his association with financial institutions at leadership positions, he has handled responsibilities in areas of credit risk assessment, project appraisal, relationship, and people management. With his extensive experience in banking and finance sector, he comes with spectrum of knowledge in credit analysis and its mapping to business risk, financial risk and industry risk.