Vikas Pershad
Vikas Pershad is a senior fund manager for M&G Investments, a global firm with AUM approaching GBP 400 billion.
Mr. Pershad invests in public and private companies in the semiconductor and life sciences sectors across Asia and around the world. He also manages the firm’s public equity funds in India — a country that is gaining prominence in investors' portfolios and on the global stage. He is a board advisor to udaan, India’s leading B2B platform for small and medium businesses. He is also a frequent contributor to financial media organizations, including Bloomberg, CNBC, ET Now, and the Wall Street Journal.
During our lifetimes, Mr. Pershad sees the largest opportunities for governments and private enterprises to create value and manage risks in three areas: adapting to climate change, leveraging applied statistics (a phrase he prefers to "machine learning") and harnessing synthetic biology.
An immediate focus is on reducing gender-based inequities both in the workplace and at home, a topic on which he has published his views, spoken in the media, and engaged with government officials and companies’ senior management teams for years.
Mr. Pershad is a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School and of the University of Virginia, where he was an Echols Scholar. For a decade he has lived in Singapore with his wife, Shweta, and son, Aryan.