Korn Ferry hires Sharad Vishvanath as APAC Head of transformation and transaction (M&A)

Korn Ferry on Thursday announced appointing Sharad Vishvanath as APAC regional head for the Transformation and Transaction (M&A) practice.

Vishvanath, who brings to Korn Ferry over 20 years of experience across banking and consulting and has worked in multiple countries, will join the firm from AU Small Finance Bank, a start-up bank in India where he was running the digital bank, analytics and HR portfolios.

At AU, he led the first fully digital loan product launch, deploying deep machine learning models across customer, credit, and people analytics. He also successfully completed an HR digitization and transformation of the bank.

Prior, Vishvanath spent close to 15 years at a global consulting firm where he was the regional managing director, Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa (AMEA), for their Strategic Advisory practice that focused on helping clients through mergers and acquisitions and related transactions. He is an industry expert in banking and financial services and has worked with Citibank and HSBC in business and sales roles.

"Sharad is multi-faceted, transformational leader with a 15-year track record of delivering successful projects for his clients," said Michael Distefano, Chief Operating Officer, Korn Ferry, Asia Pacific.

"His experience and expertise in leading mergers and acquisitions will benefit our colleagues and clients throughout Asia Pacific; we are excited to have him on the Korn Ferry team," added Distefano.

Vishvanath holds an MBA from Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania and a B.E. from IIT Roorkee.