Shagoofa has over two decades of experience in private equity, acquisitions, joint ventures and strategic initiatives, corporate and commercial laws, compliance and ethics advisory, audit and finance roles. In her career span of over 23 years, she was an in-house counsel for 10 years with leading Indian corporate houses. At NIIF, she is the Group General Counsel and Head of Corporate Affairs and is based out of the Mumbai office. Prior to joining NIIF, Shagoofa was a Partner with Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM). At CAM, she headed the Investments Funds practice and specialised in Private Equity investment advisory for infrastructure, real estate, and financial services sectors.

She has advised global and domestic fund houses in structuring and setting up of their cross border as well as domestic funds, including combination structures and fund of funds. She has advised large institutional investors (including pension funds and sovereign funds) on their strategic and platform investments in India. She has also played an active role on the policy advocacy front by being part of committees constituted by the regulators, providing support to industry associations such as IVCA and APREA and assisting clients on representations to Government ministries and regulatory bodies. Prior to joining CAM, Shagoofa was the Senior Director and Head Legal and Compliance at IDFC Alternatives.

Prior to IDFC, she was Vice President in the Group Legal Team of Tata Sons. Before Tata, she was with Kotak Investment Advisors Limited (KIAL) as Senior Vice President and Head Legal. Prior to Kotak, she worked with Nishith Desai Associates as Head - real estate funds and Head - international tax policy. She holds a Bachelor in Law (LL.B) from University of Mumbai. She is a Fellow Member with the Institute of Chartered Accountant of India and has completed the Company Secretarial program with the Institute of Company Secretaries of India.

Shagoofa has been recognised under the “India’s Top 100 Women in Finance, 2020” list by AIWMI and under “Top 20 Emerging Legal Leaders, India” by RSG Emerging Leaders 2019. She has been recognised as “Distinguished Practitioner” and “Leading Lawyer”, for multiple years, by AsiaLaw Leading Lawyers rankings and Legal 500 rankings, respectively.