Raj Bhatia is an investment banker & derivatives trader turned entrepreneur and academic. He is the Founder & CEO of NEURAL CAPITAL, a firm that specializes in the developing and trading quantitative trading strategies for the global financial markets. He is a Partner at NEURAL INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS.

He worked at Citibank Global Asset Management, London, where his Alternative Investment Strategies Group managed US$ 10 billion in Fund-of-Hedge Funds and in Collateralized Debt Obligations. He has also worked at Lehman Brothers, London in their Global Derivative Products group as a Derivatives Structurer focusing on Fixed Income, Currencies & Commodities.

At Merrill Lynch Capital Markets, Hong Kong, he was the Country Coverage Officer for the Indian sub-continent covering major clients like the Ministry of Finance, Republic of India, ONGC, Indian Oil and NTPC.

Earlier, he worked at Booz.Allen & Hamilton, Sydney as a Strategy Consultant on assignments for one of the largest banks in Australia and as an Interbank Foreign Exchange Trader with Citicorp Investment Bank in India.

As an entrepreneur, Mr. Bhatia worked for Financial Engineering LLC, in Delray Beach, Florida where his work on artificial intelligence and neural networks based trading strategies resulted in the development of the Neural Trader system which was the second best performing trading strategy in the world in 2004-2005. That effort resulted in the creation of a new hedge fund, Delray Capital and his own firm, Neural Capital.

He is an alumnus of Columbia University, New York, where he was a Dean's Fellow at the School of International Affairs and majored in International Banking & Finance. He is also an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and St. Stephen's College, Delhi. He is the recipient of several awards for academic excellence including the Founder's Gold Medal at La Martiniere for Boys, Kolkatta.

He is an avid sportsman and was the Captain of the Cross Country Team at IIM Ahmedabad as well as the champion in the 800 m and the 1500 m at La Martiniere for Boys, Calcutta. He has played cricket for the Hampstead Cricket Club in London and for the Palm Tree Criciekt Club in Highgate, London. He also served as the Vice President of the Tulsa Cricket Association in the United States.

His other interests include flying the Cessna 152 and the T-67 Slingsby, an aerobatic plane used by the US Air Force for pilot training. He is also active in debates on Economics, Geopolitics, National politics and Social issues.

He also plays tennis, squash, golf and enjoys swimming, snorkeling and wind surfing. He currently lives in Goa with his Russian wife and American daughter and two adopted wild dogs.

Mr. Bhatia also worked as a volunteer for the Boca Raton Community Hospital in Florida, for the Sony Ericsson Tennis Tournament in Miami (the fifth Grand Slam) and at a Support Center in Tulsa for the families of the victims of 9/11.