Saurabh Kumar started in the trial courts of Delhi, preparing briefs and arguing appeals at the Chamber of Shri H.S. Phoolka, Padma Shri. Criminal matters, civil disputes, appearances before the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court. That early work, years of it, taught him to pay attention to what people leave out of their statements. It turns out that skill has a longer shelf life than any law school subject.

He moved in-house. Financial services first. At one of India’s largest non-banking financial institutions, he set up the legal function for a new lending vertical, worked with the Reserve Bank of India and the Banking Ombudsman, and spent months in tier 2 and tier 3 towns figuring out whether the company’s plans made sense on the ground. Some of them didn’t.

The investigative work came later. Fraud, regulatory compliance, FCPA, due diligence, asset tracing for multinational clients. He has been appointed as an expert commissioner by multiple High Courts for evidence collection in contested commercial litigation. That work changed how he reads corporate disclosures. Once you have sat across from someone who is lying about where the money went, annual reports start reading differently.

He was the first lawyer to graduate from IIM Calcutta’s MBA programme. Before law school, he was at the National Defence Academy in Khadakwasla. He holds admissions to the Bar Council of Delhi and the State Bar of California (#357471), and carries CFE, CAMS, and CEDS certifications.

None of that is why he is here.

Indian boards are getting more complex. The regulations are thicker, the risks less obvious, and the questions that matter in a board meeting are often the ones nobody is asking. Saurabh thinks an independent director’s job is to ask those questions, clearly and without drama, before they become problems that show up in newspapers. That is what this platform is about.

Governance focus areas

Audit Committee oversight. Regulatory and compliance risk. Fraud prevention frameworks. Related party transactions. Financial controls. Whistleblower mechanism design. Cross-border legal risk.

Sector familiarity

Financial services, infrastructure, energy, real estate, manufacturing, technology.