Ved Prakash Arya

Ved Prakash Arya was the founder and CEO of Milestone Capital Advisors Limited. He died after an accident in Mumbai on 25 August 2011

Arya was an engineering graduate and later did his MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He did research in ESSEC, France. Later he completed an Advanced Management Program from Harvard Business School.

Arya was the founder, managing director and CEO of Milestone Capital Advisors Limited, a professionally managed company providing investment management services on various funds and schemes to Indian and global investors across various asset classes. With around US$1 billion assets under management, Milestone advises various innovative private equity themes, targeting an investor base of non institutional investors including high-net-worth individuals, and institutional investors including insurance companies, banks, pension funds and corporates. As a key promoter of this company, Arya had successfully led the creation of private equity funds focussed on healthcare and education sectors, real estate development, bullion products, infrastructure and real estate yield driven projects in India, each having very high standards of investing excellence.

With a vision to pioneer sustainable practices in real estate space in India, Arya had also spearheaded Milestone’s strategic partnership with J. Leon Group(UK), to create ECOFIRST Services which provides strategic and operational consultancy in the areas of Energy Management, Integrated Water Resource Management and Green Building Certification apart from overall holistic approaches to sustainability in development.

Prior to Milestone, Arya was chief operating officer and director of Pantaloon Retail (India) Limited, earlier to which he was CEO, Globus Stores Private Limited, which he founded in 1998 while he was with the Rajan Raheja group, where, during his tenure of more than 10 years, has facilitated many business acquisitions and expansions.

Referred to as one of the "India's Hottest Young Executives" and “Shopkeeper #1” by Business World, (March 2006), Arya had more than 17 years of experience. He was the founder and director of the Retailers Association of India (RAI).

On 25 August 2011, Arya was struck by a falling tree in a park while on his morning walk and died en route the hospital. He is survived by his wife Rubi Arya, who took over as the vice chairman and director at Milestone Capital Advisors, his two children, and his parents.