Throughout 2025, CAIA is convening eight exclusive leadership roundtables in key financial hubs worldwide—Mumbai, Los Angeles, Toronto, New York City, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Qatar. Held under the Chatham House Rule, these intimate forums bring together 8–12 C-suite executives from asset management firms, asset owners, general partners, and industry thought leaders to debate the future of the investment profession.
These candid conversations will not only shape the industry’s trajectory but also guide CAIA’s Vision 2035—our strategic blueprint for what’s ahead. In this blog series, we’ll share key insights and emerging themes from these discussions, offering a window into the ideas shaping the future—without compromising the confidentiality of any participant.
By Nick Pollard, Managing Director, APAC, CAIA Association
and John Bowman, CEO, CAIA Association
In mid-February, we kicked off our leadership forum series in Mumbai, bringing together ten CEOs, CIOs, and Founders from across venture capital, hedge funds, private equity, regulation, wealth management, and traditional asset management. The discussion was fast-paced, dynamic, and at times, unexpectedly colliding—exactly the kind of exchange that sparks real insight. From those intense few hours, three key themes emerged.
Bipolar Private Capital Ecosystems
It is an age-old story. As financial sectors in emerging economies liberalize, modernize and accelerate, the established offshore players are typically first to market. We saw this in Singapore, Hong Kong, the Emirates, and Mexico among others, over the course of the last century—and India is no different. This dynamic can act as a fuel injection, intensifying competition, local entrants, attracting top talent and intellectual horsepower. At the same time, large waves of new capital are funding much-needed infrastructure projects and fueling the ambitions of startup founders.
The problem, however, is when developed market GPs are gobbling up the majority of both the LP commitments on one hand, and prospective investing opportunities on the other. This starves the very capable local private equity, infra, private debt, and VC firms from gaining relative traction despite a strong pattern of returns and distributions from localized strategies. This creates two parallel value chains of investor, GPs, and investments that can stifle the next phase of maturity.
Since the Alternative Investment Fund regulation was introduced from SEBI in 2012, more than 1,300 AIF’s representing over $140B of AUM are now operating with 2024 showing particularly banner growth. That said, these players, while expanding rapidly, are mostly fundraising from Indian HNW families and insurance schemes while the international GPs are bringing the big checks and long-standing relationships of their existing Western LPs to bear. Perhaps an inflection point could be the complicated and fragmented public pension system in India, which remains largely 60/40. A broadening of asset allocation policy and regulation could hypercharge the local GPs, and Indian savers, through unlocking significant capital.
The Modern GCC and Talent Tsunami
Since Texas Instruments established the first “business process outsourcing” center or BPO in India in 1985, India has become the global hub to house innovation R&D, design, and of course, the middle and back office of technology and financial services companies. The cities of Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, and Chennai among others are home to nearly 2,000 what are now called Global Capability Centers (GCCs) that employ over two million workers. This includes industry titans like Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, Blackrock and KKR. This enormous talent pool is hungry to deepen their technical skills and advance in their careers.
However, it was also clear from the panel that the industry, and educational bodies as an extension, are too single minded on “job ready” skills. We must complement proficiency in accounting and asset valuation with professional competencies such as leadership, communication, negotiation, and influence.
Hedge Funds Face Cultural Headwinds
Despite the explosion in AIFs, hedge funds have not kept pace with private capital firms despite having their own category in the regulatory scheme. While the sub-optimal taxation rules seem to be part of the equation, the larger headwind is the long-only equity culture. India’s asset management industry remains overwhelmingly a traditional mutual fund and buy-side equity profession. While the National Stock Exchange is home to the largest derivatives market in the world, there is relatively little shorting. This lack of a balanced market, partly due to the societal psyche, constrains liquidity and price discovery. And the under-representation of high quality and diversifying long short and market neutral strategies is a disadvantage for Indian investors.
For a broader overview of the state of the Indian investment management industry, see Navneet Munro’s, CEO of HFDC Fund Management, overview and summary of our seminal piece, The Rise of India’s Private Equity Market on Indian PE and VC from a few years ago.
Final Thoughts
Our time in Mumbai reinforced just how quickly the investment profession is evolving—and how vital these candid conversations are in shaping its future. The themes that emerged here are just the beginning. As we continue this global series, each roundtable will bring new perspectives, fresh debates, and deeper insights.
Next up: Los Angeles, California, USA. Stay tuned.
About the Contributors
Nick Pollard is a seasoned leader with over 15 years of international finance experience in the APAC region. Currently, he is helping drive CAIA Association’s expansion in this key market, leveraging his expertise in business development and his passion for training the next generation of finance professionals. Nick's career includes a successful seven-year tenure as Managing Director for the CFA Institute in APAC, where he worked closely with institutional partners, employers, universities, and regulators. Prior to joining the CFA Institute, Nick held senior leadership roles at The Royal Bank of Scotland’s Coutts Asia division, where he served as CEO, and later, as Head of International Learning and Professional Development for Coutts International. His career began with NatWest Group where he honed his skills in marketing and talent development. Nick has lived and worked in the APAC region for nearly two decades, positioning him at the forefront of the region's economic and demographic shifts. He holds a B.A. from University College, London.
John L. Bowman, CFA was appointed CEO for the CAIA Association in January 2025. He has devoted over 25 years to the asset management industry to recover the narrative of the value that the investment profession brings to society. He is a staunch public advocate for market integrity, long-termism, investor outcomes, diversity, human dignity and educational standards, as necessary ingredients to building a sustainable and healthy profession. John previously served as Managing Director for the Americas for CFA Institute, a region comprised of 40+ countries from Canada, the U.S., Central America, South America and the Caribbean. Before that, John was a portfolio manager for non-US equity strategies at both Boston Company and SSgA for several years. John is a prolific, speaker, writer and commentator, frequently keynoting industry conferences and appearing in investment and business publications such as the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Pension and Investments, Financial Advisor, The Independent, Wealthmanagement.com and CNBC. Bowman earned a BS in Business Administration from Mary Washington College and is a CFA charterholder.
Learn more about CAIA Association and how to become part of a professional network that is shaping the future of investing, by visiting https://caia.org/