BHUBANESWAR: After making headlines for all the wrong reasons in the recent past, Odisha now has something to cheer about. Son of the soil Rajeev Misra has been appointed as head of the $100 billion (approximately Rs 6.6 lakh crore) Softbank Vision Fund project constituted by Japanese telecom and Internet major SoftBank Corp (SBG).
According to reports, the Fund intends to make investments in the technology sector globally. The fund, to be managed in the United Kingdom by a subsidiary of SBG, is reportedly one of the world's largest of its kind. It will deploy capital from SBG and investment partners and be operated from London by Rajeev.
Softbank has been on the hunt for unicorns, those high performing start-ups like Ola and Snapdeal which the firm's India-born president Nikesh Arora invested in. Arora, the blue-eyed boy of Softbank's brass before leaving a few months ago, was being paid a whopping RS 500 crore annual package.
Rajeev's pay package, however, is undisclosed. Eldest son of Maya Misra and late Mahesh Chandra Misra and a native of Bhoisahi in Balasore town, Rajeev is considered the first Odia to hold the position of a top executive in a multinational company like SoftBank Group Corp.
While his appointment has become the talk of the corporate world, his family members back home are proud of his achievement. "I am delighted and overwhelmed. I am thankful to God for the feat he has achieved. This is the result of his dedication, hard work and passion," said Rajeev's mother over phone from New Delhi.
Prior to his new assignment, Rajeev served as Head of Strategic Finance at SoftBank Group Corp for nearly two years from November 3, 2014.
He joined SoftBank in November, 2014. Earlier, Rajeev had spent five years at UBS as the Global Head of Credit and Head of Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities in Europe, Middle East and Africa.
He also served as the Head of Credit Derivatives and Chief of Global Credit Trading at Deutsche Bank AG. Rajeev did his schooling at Delhi Public School, New Delhi and pursued Chemical Engineering in IIT-Delhi for a year before switching over to Pennsylvania University, US where he completed his graduation in Mechanical Engineering and MTech in Computer Science. Subsequently, he completed his MBA from Sloan School of Management, a business school of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) after which he joined Merrill Lynch. He is in the board of both University of Pennsylvania and MIT.
He has also set up a charity 'Vahani scholarship' to fund underprivileged students' studies abroad. His uncle Prakash Chandra Mishra said Rajeev has made the State proud. His father had worked as vice president of Escorts limited and was associated with IBM in the late seventies while his mother worked in a renowned media house. Rajeev's wife Shalini Misra is a London-based architect.