Sameer Gandotra has been with the Futura Group since 2010. He oversees the group’s oil & gas services business as well as strategy and finance for other group companies. Sameer splits his time between Central Asia, West Africa and India. He started his career in the family business in commodities, with assignments in Kolkata, Delhi and London. After a brief stint in investment banking with the Bank of America in New York, he moved to Central Asia where he initially worked at Nelson Resources, an independent oil & gas company. He led the company’s M & A activity with the acquisition of a few active oil fields as well as managing the sale process of the company.
He spent 4 years as Deputy Managing Director of KSS, the leading Kazakhstan Engineering & Construction Company. In addition, he was Chairman of the Board of PSN Kazakhstan and Board Representative on Keppel Kazakhstan – a shipyard in the Caspian Sea and Punj Lloyd KSS Caspian. Among his many responsibilities at KSS he led the contracts department that was responsible for awarding and managing over $500 million construction subcontracts & procurement annually.
Sameer has a Bachelor’s Degree with Honors in Mathematics from St. Stephens College, Delhi University and an MBA from Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He is multilingual and speaks Hindi, Russian, Bengali, Assamese and Kazakh.