Pooja Sarkar Email & Phone Number

New York City Metropolitan Area

Focussed on US antitrust coverage- FTC and DoJ regulatory framework, and it’s impact on deal making especially tech, AI regulations. Also look at media M&A coverage.

New York, United States

New York City Metropolitan Area

The cross-border data journalism fellowship is Columbia Journalism School’s preeminent postgraduate six months fellowship which focuses on delivering a global data investigative story of public interest. As a visiting fellow I am working on a long term team project which is investigating a story at the intersection of corporate greed and abuse of public health. The flagship fellowship under Columbia Journalism Investigations allows me to focus on analyzing financial documents, court records, filing FOIA/FOIL requests. I also focus on large data set mapping, identifying shell companies and building models for our data stories.

New York, United States

Graduated with Master of Arts in Business and Economics Journalism with focus on financial investigations. As part of my course electives I focussed on subjects that align with my larger goal of working on financial investigative stories.Courses Taken: Financial Accounting- From making balance sheets from scratch to accounting for book keeping and taxation purpose. Investigative Journalism (MA- Essentials)Corporate Finance and Valuation of Companies- The course focuses on valuing companies and building financial models for assessing investments in a company. Energy, Conflict and Human Rights - with focus on understanding corporate behaviour in extractive mining business and their impact on human rights violations in those communities.Business and Economics (Semester I)- To focus on macro-economic writing Business and Economics (Semester II)- To focus on Corporate Writing Master's Thesis: Due in April, 2023. An investigative piece on global venture capital funds backed Indian tech startup's US journey and why it decided to retreat within three years. Scholarship: South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA 2022 Winnerhttps://saja.org/page-935554/12893612)

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

As a Senior Assistant Editor I wrote on global private equity funds deploying capital in India. I also focused on reporting on Indian financial ecosystem, large corporates and challenges of Indian economy. Apart from my core finance stories, I also wrote on socially relevant stories and did a series on India's largest migrant worker crisis during the pandemic in 2020.Key Stories:Investigative story on KKR's India NBFC investments which had gone sour. Investigative story on one of India's largest conglomerate Aditya Birla Group's Real Estate Fund's non performance and eventual liquidationFund Profile of Blackstone India, which is Blackstone's largest market in Asia. Fund Profile of Brookfield India's investments which deployed over $10 billion during the pandemicInvestigative profile on Lodha Developer, one of the largest realtor in India. Series on Indian government owned insurer Life Corporation of India before its public listing on its poor performance metrics. Apart from writing for the magazine I launched Forbes India's first in-house podcast- From The Bookshelves of Forbes India. The book podcast rated number one for 2021 and 2022. I interviewed authors from the world of business economics and finance which included the likes of Mr.Thomas Piketty, Mr. Steve Schwarzman of Blackstone, Mr. Jeff Immelt of GE among others. After the success of first podcast, I launched Capital Ideas, where we interviewed global business leaders. My podcast on Indian Government's Budget 2022 was the number one podcast for Forbes India for 2023.

Mumbai Area, India

Wrote long form deep dive stories on private equity and venture capital funds investing in India.-India's Renewable Energy company Renew's failed IPO attempt- Deep dive on Indian government's insurance firm Life Insurance Corp-Secondaries in VC space in India due to non-performance of fund performance

Mumbai Area, India

ET NOW is the second largest business Television Network in India. In my role I led reporting on breaking stories in the mergers and acquisition and deal space. I covered listed corporates and large conglomerates as part of my coverage. Stories: Was part of the lead team which reported on India's largest corporate battle of Tata Group vs Cyrus Mistry on his unceremonious ouster. I was first to break the story on why Cyrus Mistry was ousted from the board. My coverage of this story was streamed across the larger network- Mirror Now and Times Now. - Focussed on breaking stories on the nascent Infrastructure Investment Trusts and Real Estate Investment Trusts launching in India by global financial investors.- Reported extensively on distressed assets and acquisition of these assets by global funds like KKR, Blackstone among others.

Mumbai Area, India

As part of my role I focussed on breaking stories in investment banking, capital markets, private equity and venture capital. I led the deals coverage team for the news paper. Apart from breaking stories, I focussed on writing financial investigative stories.

Mumbai Area, India

I started as a reporter in 2012 and during my two years at VCCircle, I was elevated to the role of Assistant Editor due to my performance. I extensively covered and broke stories on mergers and acquisitions in the Indian corporate space. My key role was to break deals stories and follow up on them with deal analysis and its impact on the larger deals ecosystem. Key Stories:Diageo's acquisition of Kingfisher- one of the largest deals in India in the spirits space.Etihad's acquisition of 24% stake in Jet Airways, the largest FDI transaction in airlines sector in India in 2012. Extensively wrote on Indian real estate private equity investments and commercial mortgage backed bonds issued by Indian developers.

Kolkata Area, India

I covered real estate, cement, Synthetics and Petro Chemicals, Fertiliser, Pesticides, Chemical and Leather industry for Business Standard in Kolkata. Apart from writing on business stories I wrote socially important stories from the city which were featured as part of Sunday's Weekend Edition.

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

As part of my first job, I started my career covering real estate and cement sector. During the financial crisis I actively wrote on Lehman Brother's fall and its impact on its Indian workers and investments of US funds in Indian real estate.I was given the additional responsibility to cover Oil & Gas industry and later private equity transactions in India.

Mumbai Metropolitan Region

I started as a cub reporter covering architecture and real estate for the paper in Mumbai and then shifted to Kolkata covering the same.

Master Of Arts - Ma, Business And Economics Journalism

Bachelor In Mass Media, Journalism, Graduated With Second Rank In Journalism Specialisation (Bmm) In College.

Activities and Societies: Headed the quiz and debate team for college events, member of organising team of college BMM Festival, Sales.

Education record