Archana (AR / Aer) is the Founder of Rajaram Legal. Consumed by guilt for naming the firm after herself, she tries to compensate by pretending to be weary of big titles or hierarchy, but insists on everyone calling her CMD (Chairman and Managing Director). CMD started her career at law firms Nishith Desai Associates and AZB Partners (where her highlight was advising on the sale of UTV Motion Pictures to The Walt Disney Company for an enterprise value of $1.4 billion). She then moved in-house as General Counsel to Ronnie Screwvala’s Unilazer Ventures where she did a 180 and realised that the start-up and venture capital space is where it’s at. She tries to be more subtle about high value transactions, but has not succeeded.

Having gone down the only 2 paths available to a corporate lawyer, she decided to try her luck starting something of her own. More weary than most founders when it comes to lengthy Shareholder Agreements, she spends her free time reducing the word count of the firm’s template deal documents. Her driving force is the freedom to work with like-minded clients and colleagues and cornering everyone into playing a game of Psych over Zoom catchups. And getting a deal done without a 10 hour negotiation on defining ‘best efforts’ (or worse, ‘material adverse change’).