Anand Vardhan is the President – Legal at Piramal Capital & Housing Finance. He heads a team of over 25 lawyers, across Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Limited, including now acquired Dewan Housing Finance Limited and Piramal’s subsidiaries. Holding a Bachelor’s degree in Law from the University of Delhi, he is also an associate member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India. Anand has over two decades of experience in handling litigations & legal policies, procedures, financial services, private equity, investment management, general banking & infrastructure, mortgage finance, real estate, recoveries & consumer protection, insolvency & bankruptcy proceedings, stressed accounts management and dispute resolution.

Earlier, he was the General Counsel at SUN-Apollo Ventures, an offshore real estate private equity fund and before that an Associate Vice President and Head – Legal, HDFC Venture Capital Fund. He has held several managerial positions in legal functions at leading corporate and business houses like ICICI Bank, Tata Housing and Daewoo Motors.

Anand received the Leadership Excellence Awards for Professional Excellence & Distinguished Service at the India Economic & Law Summit (2018). Under his guidance, Legal 500 recognised the legal team of Piramal Capital as one of the best in-house teams in the BFSI. He was listed amongst the Top 100 Most Influential and Innovative In-house Counsels by Legal 500 in GC Power List-India (2016) and (2018) and also as part of Business World Legal World’s 2022 i.e., Top 100 General Counsel in India (2021) and (2022). He was also acknowledged as In-House Lawyer of the Year in Banking & Finance at Legal Era Awards (2020-21).

Don’t shy away from challenges and take each challenge as an opportunity. Focus on learning and understanding the core business and its nuances that will enable you to provide better legal solutions, mixing the legal needs with business requirements. Being a lawyer may not be enough, you should be able to wear the ‘business hat’ to have a better understanding of issues and its solutions. You should also be mindful of the sector specific developments. The most important advice is learn to ‘switch off’ when required, sleep over it / take a step back and think/strategise afresh.