Vishal Goel

Vishal Goel is the co-founder of Cerestra Ventures and leads the investment firm managing a portfolio of USD 600 million. He conceptualized and executed the investment strategy of various verticals of the company spread across education, life sciences, and industrial sectors. He is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and Graduate School of Design. He has over 20 years of experience in real estate advisory and management of ground-up development of core assets. He has global investment experience across Singapore, Indian and US markets.

Formerly, he was the Managing Director & Head of India operations of a USD 28 billion NYSE listed REIT for 5 years where he set up their Indian operations unit, deployed over USD 200 million and managed the development of over 1 million sq. ft. of built-up space. He was instrumental in conceptualizing and developing the ‘Genome Valley’ high-technology knowledge cluster in Hyderabad.

Prior to that, he worked with Ernst &Young for a decade where he handled large PPP transactions and private equity advisory of over USD 600 million. He has been an advisor to the Government of Gujarat for ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ during the years 2005-2009. He was the head of real estate advisory from 2005-2008 and also advised marque investors like DE Shaw, Citibank, Lehman Brothers on their investments in India. He advised several large REITs including Alexandria and Forest City in their India-entry strategy. He has had an extensive exposure to global REIT practices in core business areas of operations, acquisition, financing, leading and underwriting. He is a faculty and subject matter expert on REITs in ASEAN for RICS.