GC Influencers
Most Influential GCs - India
Mukesh Bhavnani of Bharti Enterprises Limited.
New Delhi-based Mukesh Bhavnani heads the legal department at Bharti Group, where he has acted as Group General Counsel since re-joining the company in 2016. He is a hugely experienced advisor with over four decades of experience serving as counsel to some of India’s top conglomerates. Having started his career at Godrej in 1981, he spent over a decade as the general manager for legal issues within the company, also spending time at Vedanta. Besides his experience in several prominent Indian conglomerates, he worked in Dubai for Jumbo Electronics Company.
He is particularly highlighted for his broad-ranging expertise and seniority, one source reporting: “There is no question that he is significant in the market and clearly important within the Bharti group, he is a very able guy, and his name should be in any list of the top GCs in India, without doubt.” Another interviewee remarks upon his “global experience,” emphasising his role in shaping strategic growth overseas: “He worked at Coca-Cola, he was general counsel at Essar Group, then Vedanta, and now he is at Bharti. These are three Indian corporates where Mukesh has played a pretty pivotal role in their expansion globally.”
Amongst a variety of major mandates in which he has played a key role, he was central to the approximately USD1. 45 billion investment made into its subsidiary company, Airtel Africa, by seven leading global investors including Warburg Pincus, Softbank, Temasek, Singtel and Qatar Investment Authority, and Airtel Africa’s subsequent IPO in which it raised USD750 million.