Ferish Patel heads Cooley’s Singapore corporate practice. For over 18 years, Ferish has advised clients across the full-spectrum of corporate matters --- including private financings of all stages, IPOs, bank financings, leveraged buyouts, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and corporate governance matters. This breadth of transactional experience has allowed Ferish to provide strategic guidance to founders, highgrowth companies and investment funds on matters in Asia, Europe, Latin America and the US. In so doing, he has assisted clients in raising over US$100 billion in public and private financings, involving equity and debt capital.

Ferish has practiced in New York, India, Hong Kong and Singapore, and has been based in Asia for ten
years.

Prior to joining Cooley, Ferish founded and led the Singapore office of Gunderson, and he previously
practiced with Simpson Thacher, in New York, and Davis Polk, in Hong Kong. Ferish also is a partner at CYL
& Partners, a firm of Hong Kong solicitors which practices in association with Cooley HK, a Hong Kong
registered foreign law firm.

Ferish is fluent in Hindi and Gujarati.  

Priya is the Managing Director at Silicon Valley Bank. As the Market Lead for India, MENA and SEA, she provides international market entry advice and introductions with a focus on technology and innovation cross-border companies, entrepreneurs and venture capital funds in emerging markets. Prior to this role she was Director of Early Stage practice. Priya calls on her experience, expertise and connections to champion a more inclusive innovation economy. She works closely with community and diversity ecosystem partners, including Change Catalyst, Kapor Capital, Big Brothers Big Sisters Organization, Women Who Code, and more. Other university partners Priya has partnered with include Dorm Room Fund, The House Fund, Stanford Venture Studio and Rough Draft Ventures.

Sara Rona is a director of Startup Banking for Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and is the market lead for Australia & New Zealand, where she manages SVB’s portfolio of technology startups and venture capital funds based in the region. She is also leading global channel partnerships in Latin America, India, Australia and New Zealand, and Middle East North Africa (MENA) countries.

 
Sara joined SVB in 2018 as a director of business planning, covering Technology and Healthcare banking. There, she helped drive go to market strategy, objectives and key results for the commercial bank. She partnered closely with the leadership team to execute and operationalize communication strategy, roadmaps and division-wide initiatives. Earlier in her career, she held various roles in corporate strategy, product management and business development at various organizations like HSBC, IFC-World Bank and Deutsche Bank.