Chirag Agrawal takes over as Deloitte South Asia's new head of corporate finance

Before EY, Agrawal had stints at Credit Suisse, Jefferies, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, JM Morgan Stanley and KPMG

Chirag Agrawal, Ex-Partner (Investment Banking) at Big 4 firm EY India has joined rival firm Deloitte as its new head of corporate finance/investment banking in South Asia.

Agrawal announced the transition in a LinkedIn post on January 5.

On December 16, Moneycontrol was the first to report the proposed move.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Agrawal, an alumnus of the London School of Economics and Politics Science, has over two decades of investment banking experience and has advised clients on strategic M&A and capital raising (equity and debt) from public and private markets.

Before EY, he had stints at Credit Suisse, Jefferies, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, JM Morgan Stanley and KPMG.

Romal Shetty's Deloitte Strategy 

Deloitte has been hiring aggressively under Romal Shetty, who came on board for a four-year term as CEO of Deloitte South Asia, starting April 1, 2023.

On July 21, 2023, the Economic Times reported that Deloitte had moved to poach multiple senior partners and more than 100 professionals in the deal advisory space from rival KPMG, including Vivek Gupta, Head (M&A and private equity tax) and Rohit Berry, National Head (Deal Advisory)

In October, as part of an expansion plan, Deloitte picked up PwC network firms in Sri Lanka and Maldives. The deal, one of the largest such combination deals in the region, involved 28 partners and 800 people, according to Reuters.

Alluding to the growth plans of Deloitte in a recent interview with Business Today, Shetty said the firm is looking to hire as many as 40,000 to 50,000 people over the next 4-5 years. It currently has a workforce of around 1.2 lakh in India.Note For Readers: Corporate Crossings is a series from Moneycontrol that will focus the lens on important executive movements within companies and in the industry, and capture the exits and new innings of members of India Inc., investment bankers, lawyers, Big 4 professionals, private equity investors, & more.