Everstone Group’s Devaiah PM Headed To Adani Group As Group General Counsel; NDA’s Pratibha Jain To Takeover His Role

Pratibha Jain

“She is scheduled to join the private equity firm as Group General Counsel on 1st May, 2021. She will also head the corporate affairs vertical,” added a third individual.

In recent times, the domestic legal circles have witnessed a churn in executives working in law firms and corporates. Recently, Sapan Gupta, the general counsel of Arcelor Mittal Nippon Steel (AMNS) India and vice-president, Arcelor Mittal was elevated to the post of Global General Counsel at the Lakshmi Mittal founded steel behemoth. Additionally, L& L Partner Damini Bhalla is headed to IPO bound food delivery unicorn Zomato as General Counsel.

All the three individuals above spoke to Moneycontrol on the condition of anonymity.

The Adani Group did not respond to an email query sent by Moneycontrol. Moneycontrol is awaiting the response to an email query sent to Devaiah PM and Everstone Group and will update this article as soon as it hears from them. When contacted on the phone, Devaiah PM declined to comment.

When contacted , Nishith Desai Associates confirmed the move of Pratibha Jain to Everstone Group.

Nishith Desai, Founder, Nishith Desai Associates said, “Pratibha joined us from Goldman Sachs about 10 years ago and helped establish our Delhi office. We have had a great decade together and have become family. Now she is joining our valuable client, Everstone. So, all in the family. We wish her a great time ahead. In conformity with NDA’s distributed leadership business model and ethos, Pratibha has trained and would be leaving behind a number of capable leaders, to fill her shoes.”

When contacted, Pratibha Jain said, “Having worked at NDA for almost a decade and having set up the Delhi office successfully, I felt the need for a new challenge. With the Everstone group being a multi-billion dollar platform spanning across private equity, real estate, infra, credit, venture and global opportunities, and in process of raising its latest private equity fund, it is a perfect platform to apply my 20+ years of experience in financial markets. I am very thankful to my colleagues at NDA including Nishith bhai for their unwavering support to me during the last few years. It’s a firm focused on research and academics and really allows you the space to grow as a professional.”

According to his Linkedin profile, Devaiah PM has more than 27 years of experience as an in-house legal counsel and has spent the last 13 years at the Everstone Group. Prior to this, he has had stints at ICICI Venture, the Carlyle Group, BPL Cellular, Unilever & Tata Projects. He is an alumnus of the University of Mysore and has attended an executive program at Harvard Business School, Boston on late stage buyouts. His experience includes compliance, multi-lateral legal assignments, cross-border transactions, complex shareholder litigation & arbitration, as well as legal and compliance matters related to the private equity, power, telecom, and manufacturing sectors.

Pratibha Jain leads the funds and regulatory practice at NDA. She has obtained law degrees from Oxford and Harvard and prior to NDA, she has spent a decade working with international law firms such as Sullivan & Cromwell and Skadden Arps in their offices in New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong and with an investment Bank, Goldman Sachs, in its offices in Hong Kong and Mumbai.