HDFC Securities strengthens team

Indian brokerage firm HDFC Securities has hired Vinod Sharma as head of private broking and wealth management. Sharma has a mandate to build private broking relationships for HDFC Securities and advise customers on wealth allocation and management.

Sharma last worked at Anagram Capital, an Ahmedabad-based retail broking firm that is part of the Lalbhai Group and which has been offering personal finance solutions for over a decade. Sharma was a director on the board and head of research at Anagram.

Sharma will report to Aseem Dhru who is managing director and chief executive officer of HDFC Securities. HDFC Securities was launched by Indian private sector lender HDFC Bank to provide institutional and retail investors with stock broking services to trade equities on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and derivatives on the NSE. It currently services 700,000 customers across 45 branches. Dhru moved to HDFC Securities in January 2008 with a mandate to grow the business. He was previously an executive vice-president at HDFC Bank.

"Vinod, with his experience of over two decades in the capital markets, will grow and guide our private broking customers by helping them make the right decisions," said Dhru in a written statement commenting on the hire.

Earlier this year, HDFC Securities hired Manish Dabir to head its institutional desk. Dabir also reports to Dhru and is responsible for building the research, sales and trading platform for foreign and domestic institutional investors investing in the Indian cash equity and equity derivatives markets. Dabir was most recently working in institutional broking at JM Financial and has previously also worked at CLSA and J.P. Morgan.