Led by its founders, Agam has a team with deep backgrounds in insurance, asset management, and risk management with offices in New Jersey and Mumbai
Avi Katz
Founder Chief Executive Officer
Chak Raghunathan
Founder Chief Operating Officer
Alexander Lin
Partner
G. Srinivasan
Board Member - AgamAnalytics Private Limited
Andrew Katz
Chief Financial Officer
Gaurav Rastogi
Managing Director
Chief Actuary
Naveen Bellam
Director
Cliff Lam
Director
Ze Zhao
Director
Albert Cecchini
Advisor, Enterprise Risk Solutions
Sam Wu
Senior Associate
Intisar Nasir
Senior Associate
Jaron Li
Associate
Alok Kumar
Director
Ashish Sharma
Senior Manager
Akshay Dande
Manager
Abhishek Mittal
Manager
Nikhil Bansal
Associate
Swati Jindal
Analyst
Prior Experience:
Apollo Management
Och-Ziff Freidheim
Education:
New York University
Avi Katz
Mr. Katz is the co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Agam Capital, a technology driven insurance solutions provider. Prior to founding Agam, Mr. Katz was a partner at Apollo Global Management where he was responsible for managing a global alternative credit portfolio. The investment mandate included high yield. special situations, private credit and alternative assets. Prior to that time, he was a partner at Och-Ziff Freidheim and, in total, has more than 27 years of experience investing in the capital markets. Mr. Katz has held many leadership positions in the financial and not-for-profit sectors. He is currently Chairman of the Board of Governors at the OU and a member of their Executive Committee.
Mr. Katz graduated from New York University with a BS in Accounting and Economics, and he is also a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Prior Experience:
Aflac
Apollo Global Management
TD Bank Financial Group
Education:
Concordia University, Canada
Chak Raghunathan
Mr. Raghunathan has over 27 years of experience in global financial services spanning insurance, banking, asset management, regulation and pension funds. Mr. Raghunathan is the former Global Chief Investments Risk Officer at Aflac where he was responsible for identifying and assessing investment risks in an evolving regulatory environment while developing strategies to address those risks. Most recently, Mr. Raghunathan was strategically partnered with the investor group that led the successful demutualization of Ohio National Financial Services (ONFS) and also serves as a board member for ONFS and its sister companies.
Previously, Mr. Raghunathan was the Chief Risk Officer at Apollo Global Management. At Apollo, Mr. Raghunathan was responsible for implementing enterprise-wide risk management framework, formulating detailed risk policies and internal guidelines for funds, and providing optimal risk management solutions. He led Apollo’s risk management efforts in its evaluation of global insurance business opportunities, specifically in regards to Athene Holding’s life and annuities businesses right from the formation of the company.
Prior to his role at Apollo, Mr. Raghunathan held positions of increasing responsibility at TD Bank Financial Group, most recently serving as senior vice president, global head of trading risk and quantitative analytics. Mr. Raghunathan was a key member of TD’s executive team that advised the bank to strategically reposition the dealer out of structured and subprime products, thus helping the bank cement its Moody's Aaa rating during the financial crisis.
Prior to his role at TD, Mr. Raghunathan held senior management positions at the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada in the Capital Markets Division and was responsible for capital markets related supervision and internal model validation for capital adequacy in banks, insurance and trust companies. Also, Mr. Raghunathan was a financial/quantitative analyst at Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec in the Tactical Investments Group, the pension fund manager for the Province of Quebec, Canada. Mr. Raghunathan started his financial career in New India Assurance Company, Madras, India as an internal audit assistant.
Mr. Raghunathan earned his bachelor’s degree in pure mathematics from the University of Madras, India and his master’s degree in applied mathematics from Concordia University, Canada.
Prior Experience:
Aflac
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Education:
Florida International University
University of British Columbia
Alexander Lin
Mr. Lin is a Partner in Quantitative Analytics of Agam Capital Management. He is responsible for the development of the integrated asset-liability management framework “pALM”. Prior to joining Agam, Mr. Lin was the Assistant Vice President, Market Risk for Aflac Inc. in its Global Investment Office. Mr. Lin was actively involved in ALM initiatives and development of the quantitative platform for market risk, credit risk, and economic capital models. He led Aflac’s modeling effort in regulatory capital (US risk-based capital and Japan Solvency Margin Ratio), participated in modeling effort for the International Association of Insurance Supervisors. Mr. Lin was also responsible for the development of investment accounting policy involving hedge accounting, commercial mortgage loans, and alternative asset investments.
Prior to Aflac, Mr. Lin was a Manager in the structured finance group in PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP specializing in the fair valuation of structured products and fail bank acquisitions. Mr. Lin holds a Bachelor of Accounting at Florida International University, and he is also a Chartered Financial Analyst and a Certified Public Accountant.
G. Srinivasan
Mr. G. Srinivasan is currently serving as Director of National Insurance Academy. Prior to that he had 39 years of experience in the non-life insurance industry both in India and abroad. He was Chairman and Managing Director of New India Assurance Co Ltd., the largest Indian non-life insurer between 2012 and 2018.
Prior to that he was Chairman and Managing Director of United India Insurance Co. Ltd for five years. He was also Managing Director and CEO of New India Assurance Co (Trinidad and Tobago) Ltd. in the Caribbean for approximately four years.
He has been and is also currently on the Boards of many companies as Director and Chairman both in India and abroad. He has held Chairmanship of General Insurance Council and General Insurance Public Sector Association (GIPSA). He is on the Insurance Advisory Committee of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI). He has been on many committees of IRDAI and the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA), Gandhinagar. He also served as President of Insurance Institute of India. He has been conferred Fellowship by Institute of Directors.
He has received many awards during his long tenure including the Personality of year by Asia Insurance Industry Awards, Singapore.
He is a Commerce graduate of Madras University, Fellow of Institute of Cost Accountants of India and a Fellow of Insurance Institute of India.
Prior Experience:
Arden Asset Management
Ernst & Young
Education:
Lehigh University
Andrew Katz
Mr. Katz is the CFO of Agam Capital Management, where he oversees all finance, legal, compliance and human capital functions. Prior to joining Agam, Mr. Katz was the Head of Hedge Accounting and Administration at Aberdeen Asset Management. Previously, Mr. Katz was the Chief Financial Officer at Arden Asset Management, responsible for all finance, tax, and operations of the management company, as well as all private and registered funds. Prior to Arden, Mr. Katz served as a senior auditor at Ernst & Young and Arthur Andersen. Mr. Katz, a Certified Public Accountant, holds a B.S. in Accounting from Lehigh University.
Ernst & Young
Manulife
University of Waterloo
Gaurav Rastogi
Gaurav Rastogi, FSA, CFA, FCIA is the Chief Actuary of Agam focusing on liability valuation, modeling and financial reporting aspects. Prior to joining Agam, Mr. Rastogi was a senior manager in the Insurance and Actuarial Advisory Services practice of Ernst & Young LLP, based in the firm's New York office. Gaurav has over 10 years of experience in actuarial modeling and financial reporting space, specializing in actuarial model conversions, and Accounting Policy and Methodology support. More recently, Gaurav has been focusing on modeling, data and systems changes required by insurers as a result of regulatory updates, such as IFRS 17, USGAAP Long Duration Targeted Improvements and Principles Based Reserving. Prior to EY, Gaurav has held multiple valuation and pricing lead roles with Manulife Financial in their Individual Life Valuation and Affinity Market groups in their Canadian offices.
Education:
Indian Institute of Management at Lucknow
Columbia University
Naveen Bellam
Mr. Bellam has over 5 years of experience working in top-tier software development, and an additional 5 years working across management consulting and quantitative modeling. Prior to joining Agam, Mr. Bellam worked at Aflac Global Investments as quantitative analyst. In this position, he worked on various projects that ranged from portfolio reallocation, economic scenario generators to comprehensive Asset Liability management. Before working at Aflac, Mr. Bellam worked in Business consulting group of Virtusa, where he focused on Banking and Insurance. In this role, Naveen managed a team of skilled consultants and delivered innovative solutions for clients that achieved consistent market advantage by combining innovative technology, process and strategic components.
Mr. Bellam received an engineering degree from IIT Guwahati with a concentration in Mechanical Engineering, and also holds an MBA from Indian Institute of Management at Lucknow, with an emphasis on Finance and Strategy. He further specialized in Financial Engineering with a masters in Mathematical Finance from Columbia University.
Prior Experience:
Aflac
TD Bank Financial
Bank of America
Morgan Stanley
OSFI
Education:
University of Toronto
Cliff Lam
Cliff Lam is a Director at Agam Capital Management focusing on the advisory and implementation of balance sheet optimization, SAA/TAA and ALM platform. Mr. Lam has more than 25 years of experience in the financial industry from both insurance and banking sectors with extensive expertise in various asset classes, trading and hedging strategies. Previously, Mr. Lam was Head of Market and Credit Risk at Aflac. He also worked at TD Bank Financial as Regional Head of Market Risk in its London and Tokyo offices. In addition, Mr. Lam served as regulatory capital specialist at Bank of America, portfolio audit leader at Morgan Stanley, and senior regulator at OSFI Canada. Mr. Lam earned his Master of Statistics degree from University of Toronto, and he is a holder of Chartered Financial Analyst, as well as Associate of Society of Actuaries.
Education:
University of Iowa - PhD in Applied Mathematical and Computational Sciences
Ze Zhao
Dr. Zhao is part of the quantitative analytics team that develops the pALM system. He has many years of experience in life insurance and prior to joining Agam, he was a quantitative analyst and developer at Transamerica.
Dr. Zhao received his PhD (Applied Mathematical and Computational Sciences) and Masters (mathematics) from University of Iowa.
Prior Experience:
BMO
TD Bank
Education:
University of Toronto
Albert Cecchini
Mr. Cecchini is an Advisor of Agam Capital Management. As a strategic professional with over 25 years of experience in the financial industry, Mr. Cecchini has extensive background in market risk, product valuation, stress testing, asset liability management and liquidity, with specialization in structured derivative products. Previously, Mr. Cecchini led the market risk oversight and independent valuation functions for the entire wholesale banking activity of two large Canadian banks. This mandate included ensuring all market risks, including tail risks, were thoroughly understood and controlled within articulated risk appetite levels, business performance was fully transparent and in keeping with strategy and risk-return hurdles and that all positions were accurately valued using appropriate quantitative models.
Mr. Cecchini earned his Bachelor of Commerce and Master of Arts in Economics degrees from University of Toronto and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Prior Experience:
Brighthouse
Aetna
Education:
Carnegie Mellon University - Master's in Computational Finance
Baruch College - Bachelor's in Mathematics
Sam Wu
Mr. Wu has over 6 years of experience in quantitative modeling in ALM and asset management. Prior to joining Agam, Mr. Wu worked at Brighthouse Financial specializing in the development of projection models for traditional life insurance and index linked annuity products. He was also responsible for providing quantitative support for portfolio management. Prior to Brighthouse, Mr. Wu worked as an Actuarial Consultant at Aetna where he focused on the development of predictive models to forecast company level risk profiles and market risks. Mr. Wu holds a Master’s in Computational Finance from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor’s in Mathematics from Baruch College.
Prior Experience:
Deloitte Consulting
Ernst & Young
Nassau Financial Group
Education:
Drake University
Intisar Nasir
Intisar Nasir, ASA, is a Senior Associate in the Actuarial department of Agam focusing on liability valuation, modeling and financial reporting aspects. Prior to joining Agam, Mr. Nasir was a consultant in the Actuarial and Insurance Solutions practice of Deloitte Consulting LLP. Mr. Nasir has over six years of experience working in actuarial consulting and insurance actuarial capacity, where his roles have focused on financial reporting, actuarial financial audits, life & annuity product and pricing, and actuarial modeling. More recently, Mr. Nasir has been focusing on the implementation of US GAAP ASU 2018-12 Targeted Improvements to the Accounting for Long Duration contracts for Life Insurers. In prior roles, Mr. Nasir has held product and pricing lead roles with Nassau Financial Group with a strong focus on Fixed and Indexed Deferred Annuities, and actuarial advisory roles with Ernst & Young LLP with a focus on model systems conversions and actuarial financial audits.
Mr. Nasir earned his bachelor's degree in Actuarial Science and Finance from Drake University.
Prior Experience:
Brighthouse Financial
Education:
Vanderbilt University
Jaron Li
Mr. Li has over 2 years of experience working in the life insurance and annuity industry.
Prior to joining Agam, he worked as an Actuarial Associate with Brighthouse Financial on the Corporate Projections and Pricing teams, and he has experience with Asset-Liability Management, Cash Flow Modeling, Financial Analysis, and Pricing across a variety of products.
He is a student actuary and holds a Bachelor's degree with a double major in Applied Mathematics and Economics from Vanderbilt University.
Education:
IIT Bombay
Alok Kumar
Mr. Kumar has set up and oversees business operations for Agam India. He had an expertise in building Indian captives in insurance and capital markets. Most recently, he was instrumental in building an Indian captive unit which included risk management, valuation, IT and middle office operations for one of the largest alternative asset manager. He also has a broad exposure to multiple asset classes namely equities, rates, forex and mortgages.
Mr. Kumar received an engineering degree from IIT Bombay with a concentration in Electrical Engineering.
Prior Experience:
Deutsche Bank
Education:
Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi
Ashish Sharma
Mr. Sharma has over 10 years of experience in the investment banking industry. Prior to joining Agam, he worked at Deutsche Bank as an Assistant Vice President on the Credit solutions desk, a part of Global Markets division, focused on providing capital and hedging solutions to pension and insurance companies across Europe, the UK and the US. In addition to this, he has 4 years of experience in the IT industry. During his career, he has worked on various structured transactions namely, reverse mortgage securitization, direct lending, VIF financing and excess reserve financing. Mr. Sharma holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. In addition to this, he is progressing towards FRM and CFA charter.
Prior Experience:
AIG
Education:
Pune University
Akshay Dande
Mr. Dande has over 3 years of actuarial experience in the life insurance and reinsurance industry. Prior to joining Agam, he was working as an Actuarial Analyst with AIG and has an exposure to actuarial valuation, reserving, modelling and financial reporting. He is a student actuary and holds Master’s in Actuarial Science and Bachelor’s in Statistics from Pune University.
Prior Experience:
WNS
Education:
University of Delhi, Institute of Actuaries of India (IAI)
Abhishek Mittal
Mr Mittal has over 2 years of actuarial experience in the life insurance industry. Prior to joining Agam, he was working as an Actuarial Analyst with WNS and has an exposure to pricing, reporting and audits. He is a student actuary and holds Bachelor’s in Mathematics from Hindu College, University of Delhi.
Prior Experience:
Accenture
AIG
Swiss Re
Education:
National Institute of Science Education and Research
Nikhil Bansal
Mr. Bansal has over 3 years of experience in insurance risk modelling including development of valuation models for life insurance products with AIG and Swiss Re. He also has worked as a senior data scientist with Accenture.
Mr. Bansal holds a Master’s degree in Applied Mathematics from National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER). He has also worked as a research fellow in Computational Sciences department of Indian Institute of Science (IISc).
Prior Experience:
Future Generali Life Insurance Company
Education:
Maharshi Dayanand University, Haryana
Institute of Actuaries of India (IAI)
Swati Jindal
Miss Jindal has over 1 year of experience in the life insurance industry. Prior to joining Agam, she worked at Future Generali Life Insurance Company, where she was involved in reinsurance administration and regulatory reporting. Miss Jindal is an actuarial student and received her Bachelor’s in Economics from Maharshi Dayanand University, Haryana.