Speaker details

Biography

Zia Mody, founder and senior partner of AZB & Partners, is one of India’s foremost corporate attorneys. She has a B.A. (Law) from Cambridge, an LLM from Harvard, and is a member of the New York State Bar. She began her career as a corporate associate at Baker & McKenzie, New York, where she worked for 5 years before moving to India to set up practice, establishing the Chambers of Zia Mody, which became AZB & Partners in 2004. The Firm has offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Pune with an integrated team of approximately 400 legal professionals. Named as one of the 300 IFLR1000 Women Leaders in 2018, awarded the “India Managing Partner of the Year – 2016” by Asian Legal Business (Thomson Reuters), Zia features on Fortune India as The 50 Most Powerful Women in Business in India, (2016 & 2017). She has been recognized as a Top 13 female Acritas Star globally by Acritas Star 2018. Awarded the “Professional of the Year - 2017” at the inaugural UK India Awards, it has been said that few of Zia’s peers can match her skills or take her on when it comes to acquisitions, joint ventures, company restructuring, foreign inward investment related practice and corporate law. Her abilities are recognized globally, as is reflected in her appointment as the Deputy Chairman and Non-Executive Director of the HSBC Asia Pacific Board, a member of the Governing Board of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration, member of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) Users Council and a member on the SIAC Panel of Arbitrators (2017-2018), foreign arbitrator on the Panel of Arbitrators of the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission, member of the World Bank Administrative Tribunal, Washington D.C. (2008-2013), and Vice President and Member of the London Court of International Arbitration (2010-2013). Zia serves on numerous advisory committees of the Confederation of Indian Industry and has been a member of several committees constituted by various ministries and regulators including the Godrej Committee on Corporate Governance (Ministry of Corporate Affairs), Committee on Rationalisation of Investment Routes and Monitoring of Foreign Portfolio Investments (SEBI), and Committee on Comprehensive Financial Services for Small Businesses and Low-Income Households (RBI).