About Iyer & Sellmer Consulting
Iyer & Sellmer Consulting is a principal-led advisory firm for companies crossing between India and Germany. We work a small number of mandates at a time, led personally by our two directors, with execution support from a named network of specialist partner firms in both countries. Our focus is market entry, partner search, and joint-venture and transaction structuring — with a particular practice in defence, security and dual-use sectors.
The firm is registered in India as Iyer & Sellmer Consulting Private Limited, formerly Scholar Warrior Consulting Private Limited. Its directors are based in New Delhi and Berlin.
Sanjay Iyer — Co-Founder and Director
(Brigadier, Retired)
Sanjay Iyer served thirty-six years in the Indian Army, retiring in the rank of Brigadier. From 2019 to 2023 he was India’s Defence Attaché to Germany, Austria and Switzerland, based at the Embassy of India in Berlin — the Government of India’s senior military-diplomatic representative to the German-speaking world, working daily with ministries, armed forces, defence industry and research institutions in all three countries.
His service included command and staff appointments across the armed forces, an executive appointment as a Brigadier in the procurement process at Army Headquarters in 2019, and service as Chief of Operations of the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) in 2004–05. He is an alumnus of the National Defence College, New Delhi. Since retiring he has advised German and Indian technology and manufacturing companies on finding partners and solutions in Europe and India. He is a director of a start-up drone company in India, currently also an Independent Director of Arthavan Legacy Pvt Ltd, and is registered as an Independent Director on the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs databank (DIN: 10930861).
His value to clients is access and judgement on the Indian side — how India’s government, defence establishment and industrial houses actually make decisions, and how a foreign company earns a place in that process — combined with a deep understanding of German institutions, systems and organisations, from ministries and the Bundeswehr to industry and research, built through four years of working with them every day.
Master of Management Studies, Osmania University, 2014
M.Sc., Defence and Strategic Studies, University of Madras, 2001–02
Certificate Course, MBA Essentials, The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), 2024
Online course, International Humanitarian Law in Theory and Practice, Leiden University, 2022
National Maritime Foundation, New Delhi
+91 94354 49870 (India) · +49 176 878 55223 (Germany)
Uwe Sellmer — Co-Founder and Director
Uwe Sellmer brings twenty-five years in German corporate finance to the India–Germany corridor. He began his career in the credit divisions of German commercial banks and has since 2008 led PERTHRO Deutschland GmbH, the Berlin advisory firm he founded and continues to manage, serving Mittelstand companies on financing, subsidy structuring, project management and mergers and acquisitions.
He chairs the administrative board of ALGIZ AG and has served as chief executive of project companies in the real estate and technology sectors. PERTHRO is listed with the Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control as an approved consultancy and holds a permit under §34c of the German Trade Regulation Act.
His value to clients is access to German capital — to banks, development institutions and funding programmes, built over two decades of continuous market presence. For Indian companies entering Germany, that means a counterparty who knows how German capital actually decides. For German companies entering India, it means the transaction gets structured and financed, not merely introduced.
How we work together
Every mandate is led by both principals, and the work between us is divided by expertise, not by geography. Sanjay Iyer leads on government, defence and institutional access, and does much of his work in Germany; Uwe Sellmer leads on finance, transaction structuring and the Mittelstand. There is no handover to junior staff, because there are no junior staff. Specialist work — legal, tax, audit, recruitment — is delivered by named partner firms in both countries, disclosed to you in advance and coordinated by us.
What a client gets is two senior counterparts who between them know both countries from the inside — both of whom were in the room for the first conversation and will be in the room for the last one.
The PERTHRO relationship
Uwe Sellmer remains founder and Managing Director of PERTHRO Deutschland GmbH, an independent Berlin advisory firm he has led since 2008. He holds that position alongside his directorship of Iyer & Sellmer Consulting Private Limited. We state this openly because our clients are entitled to know it, and because it is an advantage to them rather than a complication.
The two firms do different work.
PERTHRO advises German Mittelstand companies on financing, subsidy procurement, transaction support and project management inside Germany. Iyer & Sellmer advises companies crossing between India and Germany. Neither firm competes with the other for the other’s mandates.
The two firms are kept separate in practice.
Iyer & Sellmer mandates are contracted, staffed, delivered and invoiced by Iyer & Sellmer Consulting Private Limited. PERTHRO mandates are contracted, staffed and invoiced by PERTHRO. No engagement is moved between them without the client’s knowledge.
Where PERTHRO strengthens a mandate, we say so in writing, in advance.
Some India–Germany engagements need capabilities PERTHRO has — German financing structures, subsidy programmes, bank relationships. When we propose drawing on them, the client is told in writing before the work starts, told what it costs and who is being paid, and is free to decline and have us use another provider instead.
Our client’s interest decides.
Neither principal will recommend a course of action to an Iyer & Sellmer client because it suits the other firm. If a mandate ever puts the two in tension, the client is told and Iyer & Sellmer’s duty to that client comes first.
Our full policy is set out in our [Disclosures].
Our delivery network
Specialist work is delivered by named partner firms in both countries, under our coordination and disclosed to you.
Adjacent requirements — recruitment, logistics, IT, marketing — are delivered through this network and always disclosed as such.
Membership
Sanjay Iyer is a member of the BWA – Bundesverband für Wirtschaftsförderung und Außenwirtschaft (Federal Association for Economic Development and Foreign Trade), Berlin. Uwe Sellmer was appointed to the BWA Senate.
bwa-deutschland.com →
Sanjay Iyer with Michael Schumann, Chairman of the BWA, Berlin, December 2024.
Uwe Sellmer receiving his appointment to the BWA Senate from Michael Schumann, Berlin.
Talk to a principal
Thirty minutes, without cost or obligation, with one of our two directors — and you will know whether it is worth going further.