Mr. Paritosh K. Choksi
B.Tech., 1975, Mechanical Engineering

Mr. Paritosh K. Choksi, graduated as a Mechanical Engineer from IIT Bombay in 1975 and earned his MBA degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1977.

Mr. Choksi is currently the COO of ATEL Capital Group. He is a Board Member of:

*Syntel, Inc. (A Nasdaq company) Lead Director

* ATEL Capital Group (US Company)

*Guidance ATEL Investments Limited (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Incorporated)

His past Board Positions include:

*International House at University of California Berkeley

*IIT Bombay Heritage Foundation

Mr. Choksi was one of the first Indian entrepreneurs to make his company Phoenix American public in 1980 and was probably one of the youngest CXO of a listed company at that time. He has been associated with three IPOs, from his first IPO at Phoenix American, a financial services organization, in 1980, to Wink Communications, an interactive TV company. His most recent one is Syntel, Inc., a $2 billion IT outsourcing company, where he serves as Lead Independent Director.

In 1984, Mr. Choksi created a financial instrument that is today a multi-billion dollars per year financial industry. It was the innovation of venture leasing and later venture debt. This tool has been used by thousands of startups to finance its growth without giving up equity in the process. It is debt with an equity kicker which gave these emerging companies minimal dilutive capital. Some of the early pre-IPO stage companies he helped finance were Yahoo and Netscape. He later went to finance this on Wall Street using Asset Backed Securitization.

In 2008, he opened up the Islamic capital markets to invest in US equipment leasing to Fortune 1000 companies. His innovation created a vehicle whereby Islamic investors following the principal of Sharia laws invested in income generating equipment leased to companies such as Walmart, GE, Cargill and Bayer. This was the first financial advisory firm in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to lease equipment acceptable to Sharia laws and Ijara.

Mr. Choksi was a member of the first group that received the Distinguished Service Award in 1999 from the then Director Prof. S. Sukhatme for their work in fund raising and organizing the IIT Bombay Heritage Fund.

Mr. Choksi along with a group of his classmates raised funds (approximately $25,000) in 1995 with small contributions of $500 to $1000 each to set up the first Internet connection in a hostel at IITB. This was the genesis of IIT Bombay Heritage Foundation. He was one of the member of the core group of lITians that started the first nonprofit organization to fund IIT Bombay through the IIT Bombay Heritage Foundation. They were able to raise $20m during the first five years. He also contributed to the Heritage Fund and has a hostel wing dedicated to his mother.

Special Memories

I bought the first TV on campus in 1972. The first cricket match televised was a way for the hostel to get its TV for free. I turned a capital outlay into a cash flow proposition by charging 50 paise per day to the hostelites and Re.1 per day to non-hostel students and professors. Over the 5-day match, I collected over Rs. 2,500 to pay for the TV. Similarly, I auctioned the gaming stalls so that the hostel could turn a profit for organizing fetes. This model was later followed by many hostels across the campus.