Avinash Manudhane (Avinash) completed his B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1975 and did his M.S. from Syracuse University, New York in 1977 before obtaining an MBA with Distinction from Northwestern University, Chicago in 1981.

Avinash joined Goldman Sachs, one of the world’s largest and most prestigious investment banks, in 1987 and become its Vice President in 1989, Managing Director in 1996, and elected as a Partner of the firm in 1998. He is Head of the firm’s Global Chemical Industry effort as well as Head of the Basic Materials (metals, paper, chemicals) effort in the Americas. He is active in mentoring the next generation of professionals.

Avinash has been instrumental in building Goldman Sachs’ number one position globally in the Chemical industry for Investment Research and has also helped the Goldman team rise to a #1 standing globally in Chemical Industry Corporate Finance, Capital Raising, and Strategic Merger Advisory.

For the last 13 years, Avinash has been consistently ranked by institutional investors in multiple surveys as one of the leading industry investment advisors and for the last 7 years as #1.

Over the last 15 years, he has helped bring numerous chemical companies public, both in petrochemicals and specialty chemicals. He has helped over two dozen corporations raise equity capital in deals ranging from $50 million to $1.2 billion. He has also been involved in several chemical industry mergers ranging in value from $100 million to $10 billion, and several debt offerings.

Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Avinash helped global clients as a strategy consultant for 2 1/2 years at Booz, Allen and Hamilton, a leading global Management Consulting firm and he led teams in areas such as New Product Commercialization, Business Repositioning, and Acquisitions in specialty materials and specialty chemicals. He had earlier spent over 7 years in the chemical industry at UOP Inc., the world leader in licensing process technology for petroleum refining and petrochemicals, in roles with increasing leadership and responsibility in R&D, plant design and project management, marketing and strategic planning.