Varun Chandra joined Hakluyt in 2014 and serves as the company’s Managing Partner. He previously led the firm’s global financial sponsors practice out of New York. Prior to joining Hakluyt, Varun worked in investment and merchant banking, advising on M&A, private equity investments, and business development.

Initially trained at Lehman Brothers, he went on to help build a regulated advisory firm for former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, where he was responsible for transactions typically involving sovereign wealth and emerging markets businesses. He has also co-founded a merchant bank with a private family investment company; advised a former UK foreign secretary on business and economic issues; and invested in a number of early-stage companies.

He sits on various charitable and commercial boards, including Sesame Workshop, the world’s leading early learning media platform, IP Group, Inc (an early-stage technology investment firm based in the US) and the MCC Foundation. Varun is a graduate of the University of Oxford.