Umesh Khimji

Umesh Ajit Singh Khimji is a successor principal of the Ajit Khimji Group (AKG), a Muscat-based conglomerate and single-family office serving the Khimji family. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Ajit Khimji Group LLC and of Asha Enterprises LLC, working alongside chairman Ajit Khimji, managing director Rishi Ajit Khimji, and siblings Dharmesh and Asha. The family office deliberately keeps decision-making inside the family and its direct partners rather than delegating to external managers, and it invests across early-stage ventures, private equity, private credit, real estate, infrastructure, and hedge funds. AKG's operating interests span consumer and durable-goods businesses, including hospitality holdings such as the Mumtaz Mahal and Woodlands restaurants in Oman.

A business graduate of the University of San Diego, Umesh has more than 25 years of experience across business and investments, and is credited with pioneering and building out the investment division of the Ajit Khimji Group, which he ran for over a decade. He has held directorships at leading banks, funds, and corporations in the region, giving him a broad view across public and private markets.

In 2008–2009 he co-founded Kitara Capital together with Sachin Kamath, formalizing what had been more than a decade of proprietary investing on behalf of the Ajit Khimji family. As Chairman, he leads Kitara's strategy of taking direct positions in medium-sized businesses across sectors and geographies. He is also Chairman and Co-Founder of Halcyon Capital Holding Co SAOC, another Oman-based non-bank financial entity in which he holds an ownership stake.

• Invests as a principal — the family office is built to "keep decision rights inside the family and its direct partners," favoring direct co-investments and SPVs over blind-pool, externally-managed funds.
• Backs a wide stage range: early-stage/seed ventures through growth-stage private equity, plus private credit, real assets, and infrastructure.
• Kitara Capital's mandate: identify and invest directly in medium-sized businesses, both publicly traded and privately held, across multiple sectors and geographies.
• Sector appetite is broad but concentrated in luxury, media & entertainment, agri-tech/food-tech, fintech, industrial tech, mobility, prop-tech, energy transition, and supply chain.
• Geographic lens is the Middle East and Asia, with a natural bridge into Indian markets given the family's heritage and content/media deals.
• Comfortable acting as a long-term financing/strategic partner rather than a passive minority investor (e.g., committing capital in phases via joint ventures).