About us

Abhishek Badkul is a seasoned finance professional with over twenty-five years of proven track record of building as well as managing high-performing teams and businesses from bottom-up through effective leadership, strong client connect, as well as solid structured debt and equities experience across multiple geographies / sectors. Prior to joining Planetone, Abhishek worked with Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) for over 20 years in Singapore and Dubai where he was responsible for originating, advisory & structuring, and syndicating structured financing transactions. He brings hands-on experience of leading multi-billion, complex advisory/structuring deals and has helped several clients achieve their strategic objectives across South Asia, Southeast Asia, North Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Africa. His deal experience cuts across multiple sectors including oil & gas, other natural resources, power, infrastructure, PPPs, and digital infrastructure. He has also previously worked as an equity analyst covering the Indian oil & gas sector at ABN AMRO Asia Equities and as a corporate finance specialist at Bharat Petroleum Corporation (oil refining & marketing company); both roles based out of Mumbai, India. Abhishek holds an MBA in Finance and Strategy from London Business School, Chartered Accountancy and Bachelor of Commerce (both from India) qualifications

1.Mr. Deepak Balaji has been an integral part of the group's growth story over the last decade across its businesses in the Middle East and Africa. He has been responsible for business strategy, corporate planning and business development functions at the group. He has been instrumental in the group's foray into the African market by developing projects across education, energy and mining segments. Mr. Balaji holds a post-graduation degree in management from a leading Indian B-School and an engineering degree in Electronics & Communication. Before his stint with Planet One Group, he was working with leading corporate firms such as HDFC Investment Bank on equity and debt advisory for SMEs in India, and Accenture Consulting India for setting up a new settlement clearing system for Bank of New York (BONY).

With over 39 years of extensive experience in petroleum exploration and development, Dr. Dilip Kumar Srivastava has contributed significantly to the oil and gas industry. Formerly a Group General Manager (Geology) and Block Manager at ONGC, he has expertise in both conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon exploration across diverse basins in India and abroad. Dr. Srivastava’s career highlights include major oil and gas discoveries, field development projects, and advanced reservoir modeling. An accomplished academic, he has held professorships at the University of Petroleum & Energy Studies (UPES) and Chandigarh University, mentoring students in petroleum geology, unconventional hydrocarbons, and reservoir management. He has published extensively in Indian and international journals and has been an advisor to organizations like ONGC Energy Centre and Oil India Limited. Specializations: Basin and reservoir modeling, seismic data interpretation, unconventional hydrocarbons, and project management in exploration and development.

Rahul Chandran has more than 22 years of experience across all sectors of Finance & Accounts. In his previous and current roles he has experience of working across geographies - Asia, China, Middle East, Africa and North America. He has vast experience in Project Financing working with various International Lenders, Export Credit Agencies and Developmental Financial Institutions. He also has experience of working on financing transactions in the capital markets. He leads a team of qualified professionals that cover Project Financing, Financial Reporting, Financial Planning and Analysis and Compliance. He is responsible for raising financing for all the Projects that are being pursued by Planet One across all regions. He is a Chartered Accountant (India) and a Certified Public Accountant (USA)

David Bamford is well known around the oil & gas industry both as an explorer and a geophysicist. He holds a Physics degree from the University of Bristol and a Ph.D in Geological Sciences from the University of Birmingham. From 2004 to 2014, he has served as a non-executive director at Tullow Oil plc. He retired from BP plc in 2003, his last four positions being Chief Geophysicist (1990-1995), Business Unit Leader (General Manager) for first West Africa and then Norway (1995-1999), and finally Head of Exploration until 2003. He has also been on the board of ASX-quoted Australia Oriental Energy as a non-executive director. Over the last several years he has written extensively on the oil & gas sector and founded/taken equity interest in several media companies (Finding Petroleum, Digital Energy Journal, Carbon Capture Journal, Tanker Operator Magazine – all now owned by Future Energy Publishing Ltd, and also Geoexpro) that focus on the sector. He pays special attention to technology innovation and knowledge transfer, and has founded Next Bigger, Better Ltd for identifying and funding technology innovations by young people. He is an adviser to Siccar Point Energy & Blackstone, on the Advisory Board for Kimmeridge Energy LLC (focused on shale oil/gas plays in the USA) and most recently, he has joined the board of Terrabotics Ltd, a UK-based satellite remote sensing company.

Prashant Singh is a dynamic and goal-oriented project management professional with 15 years of expertise in engineering coordination, interface management, and vendor management for EPC and LSTK projects. He has extensive experience in upstream and downstream oil and gas, petrochemical brownfield, and grassroots projects. Prashant specializes in modularization to optimize assembly and cost, vendor standard designs for simplified installation, and managing multicultural teams across global locations. He has successfully collaborated with leading clients, including ONGC, Cairn, China Petroleum, Rosneft–Nayara Energy, IOCL, Petrofac, and Halliburton.

Arvind brings over 39 years’ experience in Oil & Gas producing Assets – spanning across operations, production optimization, production & processing facilities (deep water, shallow water, High temperature-High pressure (HPHT) & onshore terminals). He was the Executive Director & Asset Manager of Oil & Natural Gas Corporation’s (ONGC’s) Eastern Offshore Asset (EOA) and HPHT Asset at Kakinada (AP). He was responsible for tendering, award and execution of ONGC’s single largest project - development of Cluster II fields of deep-water block KG-DWN-98/2 with a capex of around USD 5 Billion. He ahs also served as the Executive Director & Asset Manager of ONGC’s Neelam & Heera Asset (NH Asset) at Mumbai Offshore which had a peak production of 3 plus MMSCD of gas & 54,000 BOPD of oil. In the past, he has served as Project Manager of ONGC’s first deep-water project in the Eastern Offshore Asset, Kakinada which commenced production from its deep water from November 2013. His career highlights include several “Firsts in ONGC” like: first Deep water Project of ONGC, first In situ Revamp of offshore Process Complex, first overseas EPC project by ONGC group of companies-Sudan Pipeline Project and first subsea repair of well platform jacket bracings (HC platform of Heera Field in western offshore).

With 15+ years of experience in the finance industry, including ten years covering sub-Saharan Africa, Richard Ndem brings on board strong skills in financial advisory, cash flow modelling, debt structuring, banking execution and relationship management. Richard benefits from having worked for diversified financial institutions - such as a microfinance NGO; American, Japanese and Nigerian commercial banks and a prominent UK infrastructure development finance institution. This broad cultural and technical experience provides him with an unmatched flexibility, adaptability and understanding of the finance sphere in emerging markets. He has held senior roles across institutions like PlanetFinance (NGO, Microfinance advisory, Paris), Ernst & Young (Project Finance advisory, Paris), GMAC (UK) (Credit Sanctioning, UK), Mizuho Corporate Bank (Project Finance portfolio and credit management, UK), FBN Bank (UK) (Project & Structured Finance structuring, UK) and PIDG Group (DFI, GuarantCo Project Finance portfolio management, UK). He has completed several fund raise initiatives for private and parastatal entities in Africa across sectors – infrastructure, hospitality, oil and gas (upstream to midstream), and shipping.