SV Desai, Sr Executive Vice President and Whole Time Director-Civil Infrastructure, Larsen & ToubroSV Desai, a second-rank holder in Civil Engineering from Gulbarga University, Karnataka in 1984 and a Post-Graduate in M Tech from IIT Madras in 1986, started his career with the National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC) as a Management trainee. He was involved in Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) and then completed four years at the Malé Republic of Maldives for a hospital project, funded by the Government of India on deputation to Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). Further to that, He was selected and rostered in Common Wealth Secretariat, London (UK) and UN Centre for Human Settlements (HABITAT), Nairobi, Kenya.Desai began his career in L&T in 1997 as a Construction Manager.During the initial period of his career, he developed expertise in Tendering and Contracts management and then became the Head of Tender and Contracts of Building and Factories (B&F) - Independent Company (IC) for domestic and international projects. He made a remarkable contribution, as Head of Procurement and Contracts, in the prestigious Delhi International Airport Project, handling various national and international stakeholders. Subsequently in 2012, from B&F-IC, he was moved to Heavy Civil Infrastructure (HCI) IC and was responsible for metros and defence businesses, and then took-over as the Head of Heavy Civil Infrastructure IC in October 2015. In HCI, he has been handling many JVs, international partners, corporates, government departments and a wide variety of jobs in the field of elevated and underground metros, bridges, tunnels, hydro, nuclear, ports and harbours, and defence infrastructure. After his elevation as the Whole Time Director and Head-Civil Infrastructure in July 2020, in addition to the businesses of HCI, he has additional responsibilities of handling the business of the Transportation Infrastructure (TI) IC which includes the roads, runways, elevated corridors and railways special business group.Desai is known for his expertise in the areas of bid estimation, negotiation and finalisation of mega projects. In heavy civil, he was instrumental in bagging landmarks infrastructure projects like Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail Packages, Riyadh Metro, Qatar Metro, and mega defence infrastructure projects. Desai, apart from being the Whole-Time Director on L&T’s Board, also is on the Boards of L&T Uttaranchal Hydropower, L&T Arunachal Hydropower, L&T Himachal Hydropower, International Seaport Dredging and L&T Infrastructure Engineering. He is also a Member of the Supervisory Board of Riyadh and Doha metro project consortiums.