By Sai Ishwarbharath B

BENGALURU (Reuters) -Consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal plans to nearly triple its global capability centre staff in India to 2,000 by the end of 2028, a top executive told Reuters, joining a growing league of firms seeking to tap talent in the world's most populous nation.

Multinational companies are increasingly setting up so-called global capability centres, which have evolved from low-cost back offices to high-value innovation hubs that support operations, finance, research and development.     

Marquee names such as JPMorgan Chase, Amazon, Walmart, American Express, Microsoft, SAP and Novo Nordisk also have global centres in India.

New York-based A&M, which currently employs about 700 people at its global centre in Gurugram near India's capital New Delhi, plans to open another one in the southern city of Bengaluru in the coming months, Manish Goyal, managing director, said on Wednesday.

The firm plans to hire professionals, including about 150 this year from premier institutions such as the Indian Institute of Technology, to bolster core business areas such as transaction and tax advisory, corporate restructuring and turnaround services, Goyal said.

"We expect this (the India operation) to be an inverted pyramid," the official said. "We don't expect us to have a very large bottom with freshers."

A&M's Indian global centres work with nearly 30 of its units across six continents.

The firm also has corporate offices in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Gurugram that work with clients on mergers and restructuring. 

(Reporting by Sai Ishwarbharath B; Editing by Dhanya Skariachan and Mrigank Dhaniwala)