Gateway Rail is led by a team of visionary Board of Directors who have a prominent standing in their respective fields. The Board of Directors bring to Gateway Rail a vast, rich and diverse experience.
Prem Kishan Gupta
Chairman & Managing Director
Mr. Gupta is the Chairman and Managing Director of the Company. He represents newsprint manufacturers in the USA, Canada and Europe with strong tie-ups in South-east Asia
Gopinath Pillai
Director
Mr. Pillai holds several key public appointments. Along with having been Ambassador-at-Large since August 2008, he was also Singapore's Non-Resident Ambassador to Iran between 1990 and 2008. He has also served as Singapore's High Commissioner to Pakistan. Mr Pillai is the Chairman of the Management Board of the Institute of South Asian Studies as well as Deputy Chairman of Ang Mo Kio-ThyeHua Kwan Hospital Limited, a non-government organisation-administered hospital for step-down care. He is a member of the Steering Committee of the Indian Heritage Centre project and Chairman of its Concept and Content sub-committee.
Mr. Pillai has also held positions of Chairman of NTUC Fairprice Co-operative Ltd; Trustee of NTUC Healthcare Co-operative Ltd; Director of NTUC Choice Homes Co-operative Ltd; and President of the National University of Singapore Society.
Mr. Pillai's varied business interests include investments in education, logistics and information technology. He is the Chairman of a port-related listed logistics company in India, Gateway Distriparks Ltd, and its subsidiary, Snowman Logistics Ltd. He is a Director of AEC Education Plc, listed on AIM in London. He is also the Director of Jurong International Holdings Pte Ltd.
Mr Pillai has received several awards, including the Friend of Labour (NTUC 1987); Meritorious Award (NTUC 1990); Friend of MCD (1998); and Friend of IT (SCS 2001). The Singapore government has awarded Ambassador Pillai the Public Service Star Award (BBM) in 1999 and BBM (BAR) in the 2009 National Day Awards.
SatPal Khattar
Director
Mr. Khattar serves as Chairman of Khattar Holdings Pte Ltd, a family holding company with diverse investments in Singapore, India, China, UK and many other parts of the world. He is the director of a number of public companies in Singapore and Hong Kong. He has substantial business interests in India and is on the Board of several leading Companies. His investments in India include real estate, commercial development, IT and IT education. He was a founder of Khattar Wong & Partners, now a full service legal firm.
Shabbir Hassanbhai
Director
Mr. Hassanbhai, serves on the boards of GatewayRail Freight Ltd and Snowman Frozen Foods Ltd. with a 40 years of business experience in manufacturing and cross border trading of wood products and metals. He has worked in Singapore, Middle East and USA.
Mr. Hassanbhai serves on various public and charitable institutions in Singapore. He is currently Singapore's Non-Resident High Commissioner to the Federal Republic of Nigeria; Chairman, of the Africa Business Group; Co-Chair, of the Singapore-Oman and Vice Chairman, Singapore-Saudi Business Councils; Member, ASEAN-India Business Council; Board Member, National Council of Social Services; Council Member, Singapore Business Federation; Secretary, of Singapore Indian Development Association.
He was awarded the Public Service Medal (PBM) in 2010 by the President of the Republic of Singapore.
Arun Agrawal
Mr. Arun Agarwal comes with an exhaustive and diverse experience of 38 years in the Indian industry. His rich experience includes 21 years in industrial sales and marketing with various Indian corporates and 17 years in the business of paper and pulp imports. Mr Agarwal is a Mechanical Engineer graduate from Delhi College of Engineering.
Mathew Cyriac
Managing Director (Blackstone Private Equity Group)
Mr. Cyriac is the Managing Director in the Private Equity Group based in Mumbai. Prior to joining Blackstone in 2006, Mr.Cyriac served as Head - Corporate Development and Strategy of iGate Global Solutions, a publicly listed IT Services company. Mr. Cyriac served as a board member of several of the iGate joint venture companies, namely, Ciber India, Software AG India and iGateLoanPro. Mr. Cyriac also served as the Chief Financial Officer of Quintant Services. As Chief Financial Officer, he led all the financing and other strategic transactions of Quintant and its eventual sale to iGate.
Prior to joining Quintant, Mr. Cyriac was the Vice President of the Investment Banking Group at CSFB, LA office, leading several equity and debt offerings, and M&A transactions. Mr. Cyriac also worked in the Private Equity Group at Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette in India for over four years. He also served as a board member of the two DLJMB India portfolio companies. Mr. Cyriac also worked in the Investment Banking Division of Bank of America in India and in the Engineering Division of Tata Motors.
Mr. Cyriac has a bachelor's degree in Engineering and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. He was awarded the IIMB Gold Medal for graduating at the top of his MBA class.
Richard B. Saldanha
Executive Director (Blackstone Private Equity Group)
Mr. Saldanha, a graduate Mechanical Engineer, served Hindustan Lever and Unilever with distinction for 30 years. He has spent almost 10 years in Latin America where he was Technical Director of Unilever Venezuela, Vice-President - Supply Chain for Unilever Andina, (Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador) rising to be Chairman and CEO of Unilever Peru and a Member of the Unilever Latin America Board.
As Managing Director of Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd, a 1.5 billion dollar enterprise, Mr. Saldanha brought to the Company, experience and expertise gained in Unilever Companies worldwide as well as in India. He is currently an Executive Director of Blackstone India and before that was a Member of the Board of The Times of India Group where he spent 5 years to help build organizational capability, culture and competitiveness. He has been a Board Member since the mid 80's on several Boards nationally and internationally.
Mr. Saldanha has been associated with various chambers of commerce and industry bodies, both in India and globally, in various capacities.
Gurdeep Singh
Mr. Singh is a Chemical Engineering Graduate from IIT Delhi. After his graduation, he joined Hindustan Lever Limited as a Management Trainee. He held various responsible positions in the Company before he was expatriated to Brazil as Technical Director of the Unilever Detergents business. Mr Singh returned to Hindustan Lever in 1998, as Director - Human Resources and Corporate Affairs and Technology, and retired from the Company in October 2003. He is on the Boards of several leading companies including Blue Star Ltd, Halonix Ltd, Gabriel India Ltd, Everest Kanto Cylinder Ltd, Renuka do Brasil S.A, Klockner Pentaplast (India) Ltd, and Tecnova India.
