Avik Sarkar
Chief Data Analytics Officer
Mumbai,MH
Summary
Dynamic AI leader with extensive expertise in credit and product analytics within consumer banking and general insurance sectors. Proven track record in establishing high-performing data science and analytics teams across diverse geographies, driving innovation and strategic insights. Adept at leveraging advanced analytical techniques to enhance decision-making processes and optimize product offerings. Committed to fostering a data-driven culture that empowers organizations to achieve their business objectives.
Overview
24
24
years of professional experience
Work History
Chief Data Analytics Officer
IDFCFIRST BANK
12.2019 - Current
- Building out the team for Data, Data Science, and AI across all major areas for the Bank. The team size increased from 20 to 550 during this time.
- Delivering value through various use cases for retail assets, cards, liabilities, and commercial banking.
- Set up the AI Labs COE, which powers all the Gen AI use cases for business and functional verticals. 20 use cases live, most significantly: a. 12 voice bots for sales and collections, b. Document intelligence with 20 best-in-class capabilities
- Build out the new data stack for the bank, which is now the base for the One Bank One Platform Program. This also helped automate over 1,500 reports across the bank, which resulted in savings and increased accuracy.
- Transformed the credit risk modeling team and introduced in-house model development with advanced ML techniques. Seventy such models are in production, which are regularly validated by regulators and external agencies.
Vice President - Head of APAC Marketing, Digital and Operational Analytics
CHUBB INSURANCE
01.2018 - 01.2019
- Generating $32 million+ incremental premium through the use of data analytics in the APAC region.
- Rolling out Speech Analytics in Korea, the biggest telemarketing operation in Chubb globally.
- Responsible for identifying and deploying a new data strategy for the APAC organization, which will integrate data across different systems. 'Pilot phase' of MDM has been completed for Singapore.
- Responsible for managing the acquisition cost ratio for the A&H business, liaising with country business and finance teams, and deploying a mix of strategies to keep the ratio below the target level.
- Find the 'Next Best Offer' for SME clients in APAC using internal and broker data.
- Responsible for establishing the tracking and reporting of digital sales channels through the cycle from agency cost data, to website data, to core systems data.
- Support the development of a data repository with external data to help underwriters approve proposals with a minimum of questions asked to the client or broker.
- Drive and manage joint analytics initiatives with big regional partners in APAC.
- Lead the adoption of new techniques, like ML and AI models, within Chubb Analytics.
Vice President - Head of Global Consumer Marketing Analytics
CHUBB INSURANCE
01.2015 - 01.2018
- Responsible for driving the adoption of analytics initiatives across all the regions where Chubb operates. Develop a test-and-learn culture within the organization.
- The setup process and drive customer management initiatives across all regions; 20% of the total TARP of Chubb IAH is now from customer management activities.
- Stringing all the pieces of customer management together—from targeting, mapping the ‘right,’ ‘contextual,’ and ‘relevant’ product, optimized channel, and leads allocation to create a seamless customer journey and experience.
- Introduced data analytics in Japan, and rebuilt the team in EMEA and LatAm. All regions now have a fully operational Data Analytics function within the consumer lines business.
- Developed a culture of tracking analytics impact within the team, and a full P&L pro forma is submitted to the Group CEO annually. The annual incremental TARP impact of over $32 million in 2017 from all three regions; a total of 20 data analytics currently in Chubb's international business are developing, deploying, and maintaining analytical models that drive the Chubb A&H direct marketing campaigns globally.
- Responsible for driving the adoption of new tools and techniques ( Like Machine Learning/ AI models ). Internal and external training is conducted, and ML models are adopted now, even in Chubb’s traditional business.
- Currently, we are conducting two parallel tests (Korea and Mexico) to introduce Speech Analytics within Chubb.
Head of Direct Marketing Analytics - APAC
CHUBB INSURANCE
01.2010 - 01.2015
- Responsible for setting up the Analytics function in Asia Pacific for ACE (Chubb) Insurance. A team of 12 or more analysts is now in the region, developing and deploying analytical solutions across the customer life cycle.
- Annual TARP impact of over $25 million across the region from analytics initiatives alone.
- Implemented database solutions in Korea and Thailand to increase the scope of analytics within the Accident and Health business.
- Successfully embedded analytics within the direct marketing function, and currently all target segments before launch are vetted by analytics.
- The scope of analytics was increased, and 'financial forecasting' of DM programs was also conducted by the Regional Analytics team.
- The increased scope of analytics included post-campaign evaluation of profitability and maintaining the overall IRR hurdles for the countries.
- Developed and implemented cross-sell/upsell models for Accident and Health products across all key markets in the region.
- Developed and deployed ‘Expert’ scorecards with Partners where data sharing was a challenge
- Undertook several Strategic Analysis to tackle Lapse, facilitate ‘win –back’ campaigns to improve persistency.
- Conducted monthly DM portfolio reviews of countries
- Identified various list rental companies and evaluated the potential from the database maintained by the respective companies.
Regional Retail Risk Manager - Emerging Markets
BARCLAYS BANK
01.2008 - 01.2010
- Responsible for acquisition strategy for both personal loans and cards in the emerging market (EM) countries.
- Developed profitability-based early warning triggers used to monitor acquisition quality across Emerging Markets (EM) for both loans and cards. A regular committee was organized, which was chaired by business heads, to review the same and approve the resulting actions.
- Introduced segment-level tracking of the performance of bookings across Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Developed a mandate and scales for all the portfolios across emerging markets (EM).
- Managed the loss forecasting for the short- and medium-term planning for EM.
- Undertook strategic analysis for the closure of segments, as well as limiting growth in some cases.
- Conducted monthly reviews of the portfolio quality and communicated them to the countries/groups.
- Managed and ensured a smooth transition of data storage and reporting post-system migrations, such as the Flex implementation in Uganda and Kenya, and the Strategy Manager implementation in all SSA countries.
- Key member of the committee in EM for the review and approval of scorecards.
Manager , Credit Analytics
HSBC
01.2005 - 01.2008
- Managed a team of 10 members and was responsible for the HSBC UK personal loans and mortgage portfolio-related credit analytics, along with the fraud analytics team for the UK consumer bank. An additional responsibility of the Training Head for the entire analytics center.
- Introduced a series of acquisition strategy changes through various strategic analyses. Introduction of CAIS balance (other borrowing). Credit turnover and debt consolidation filters at the acquisition stage had lowered the bad debt for personal loans significantly, as reflected in the results of H1 2007.
- Bankruptcy and Individual Voluntary Agreements were resulting in huge losses for the bank in the first half of 2006. Developed a bankruptcy scorecard to restrict exposure to probable bankrupt customers. It resulted in estimated additional savings of 12 million GBP annually.
- The Basel II use tests for personal loans and mortgage portfolios were carried out. It included the ranking of referrals generated at the acquisition stage based on Basel matrices, and also portfolio limit setting.
- Fraud Application Vetting (FAV) Scorecard - The scorecard was developed to refer probable fraudulent customers at the application stage. The strong scorecard developed propelled a full rollout in the UK, and it resulted in additional savings of 20 million GBP per annum.
- Developed the pack and process of scorecard monitoring for the credit scorecards, which resulted in some redevelopments and recalibrations of scorecards.
- Improved and automated the mortgage provisioning process by augmenting data using the Halifax House Price Index.
Assistant Manager - Predictive Modeling BIU
STANDARD CHARTERED BANK
01.2004 - 01.2005
- Developed response scorecards for the installment based products offered to the Credit card customers and provided optimal pricing strategy over months
- Developed cross-sell propensity scorecards for Personal loans cross-sell to the credit cards base and the entire process were revamped and 13 campaigns were rationalized into 3-Price testing and optimization were performed on all three.
- Set up the process of monitoring the Application and behavioural scorecards for credit cards and later for all the scorecards in SCB
- Implemented objective segmentation for cross-sell eligibility, replacing judgmental policy rules, which resulted in incremental booking of INR 3 million per month without any deterioration in credit quality.
- Streamlined tracking and validation of all marketing models & scorecards for SCB consumer banking portfolios.
Business Analyst
GE CAPITAL, ANALYTICS CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE
01.2002 - 01.2004
- Developed scorecards for generating prospect lists from the Dun and Bradstreet database for the transportation and the commercial businesses of GE
- Developed a 'roll worse' prediction model from bucket 1 for the auto financial business of GE.
- Created a master file with new matching logic for all existing customer and available third-party data, which paved the way for future analytics in prospect list generation.
Education
Master of Quantitative Economics -
Indian Statistical Institute
KolkataBachelor of Science - Economics, Mathematics & Statistics
St. Xavier’s College
KolkataSkills
AI and data management
Business domain knowledge of Retail banking, Credit cards and General Insurance products
Launching regional and global initiatives
Technical knowledge and experience in credit risk modeling
Coaching junior colleagues
AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS
Awarded as Employee of the Year in 2006 in HSBC, Global Analytics Centre, Recipient of Analytics100 Award at the MachineCon 2019 by the Analytics India magazine
Timeline
Chief Data Analytics Officer
IDFCFIRST BANK
12.2019 - Current
Vice President - Head of APAC Marketing, Digital and Operational Analytics
CHUBB INSURANCE
01.2018 - 01.2019
Vice President - Head of Global Consumer Marketing Analytics
CHUBB INSURANCE
01.2015 - 01.2018
Head of Direct Marketing Analytics - APAC
CHUBB INSURANCE
01.2010 - 01.2015
Regional Retail Risk Manager - Emerging Markets
BARCLAYS BANK
01.2008 - 01.2010
Manager , Credit Analytics
HSBC
01.2005 - 01.2008
Assistant Manager - Predictive Modeling BIU
STANDARD CHARTERED BANK
01.2004 - 01.2005
Business Analyst
GE CAPITAL, ANALYTICS CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE
01.2002 - 01.2004
Bachelor of Science - Economics, Mathematics & Statistics
St. Xavier’s College
Master of Quantitative Economics -
Indian Statistical Institute