Samit Thakur

India Operations Lead

(Fund Accounting, Financial Reporting, Trading and Settlement Ops & Reconciliation)

Russell Investments, India

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead and manage end-to-end operations for core financial functions including fund accounting, financial reporting, trade support, and cash & position reconciliation.
• Act as the single point of contact (SPOC) for India operations, collaborating closely with global stakeholders across US, UK, and APAC regions.
• Manage a team of 85 professionals, ensuring timely and accurate delivery of NAVs, financial statements, trade bookings, and reconciliations in line with SLA and regulatory deadlines.
• Oversee the preparation and review of monthly/quarterly/annual financial statements in accordance with IFRS/US GAAP and local standards.
• Ensure accurate and timely trade capture and settlement, coordinating with counterparties and resolving breaks or discrepancies.
• Drive daily, weekly, and monthly reconciliation processes for cash, positions, and transactions across multiple portfolios and systems.
• Maintain strong controls and compliance with internal risk policies, audit requirements, and regulatory standards (

• Financial Reporting EMEA Mutual Fund Clients
• Preparation and review of Annual and Semi Annual Financial Statements
• Calculation of distributable surplus and dividend rate based on distribution frequency for UK funds
• Answering any queries on Financial Statements received from Auditors or Clients

• Leading client facing team for answering client inquiries/escalations pertaining to fund accounting services
• Owning reconciliations and driving the resolution of breaks by working closely with the operations teams and clients
• Working with operations teams and clients to remediate any bespoke requirements due to client behavior
• Preparation of client scorecards for various fund accounting utilities
• Monthly service review meetings

• Preparation of Annual and Semi Annual Financial Statements for US Mutual Fund clients
• Other quarterly and monthly reports like Form NMFP and Form NQ
• Answering any queries on Financial Statements received from Auditors or Clients

• Preparation of Annual and Semi Annual Financial Statements for US Mutual Fund clients
• Other quarterly and monthly reports like Form NMFP and Form NQ
• Answering any queries on Financial Statements received from Auditors or Clients

• Leading a team of 20 fund accountants responsible for preparation and review of financial statements for UK based mutual funds and unit trusts
• Responding to audit queries
• Performing quality review of financials reviewed by senior team members and team managers
• Attending fortnightly governance calls with UK stakeholders
• Recruitment and performance management of team members
• Making sure that changes in regulations and SORP if any are properly incorporated in templates used for preparing Financial Statements
• Participate quality projects or operational projects if any for improving the department workflow

• Lead team and motivate team of processors responsible for NAV calculation, Financial Reporting and various other month end reporting handoffs pertaining to domestic mutual fund clients
• Support new customer implementation
• Managing delivery of any ad-hoc client or regulatory requirements
• Support the statutory auditors with all their queries in audit period
• Supervisory review of trial balance and ensure all the reconciliations are clean
• Ensure all documents like SLA, valuation policies and OM are in place for all new clients
• Leave management: Ensure compliance leaves are planned well in advance to ensure effective backup is available within the team
• Performance review of team members.

• Leading a team of 4 supervisors and 30+ fund accountants including 8 Seniors, while working on 100+ mutual funds which includes US, Canadian and Lux domiciled funds
• Daily calculation and analysis of NAV including analysis of various corporate actions, P & L of the fund and Balance sheet
• Gained expertise in different fund domiciles with varying product types including futures, options, equities, bonds, foreign exchange and CDS
• Project management which included automation, standardization and process improvement within the fund accounting system
• Key role in transition of complex fund environment to Hyderabad which included training facilitation, delegating and review
• Played a key role in setting up of 2 SME teams Amortization and Fixed Income Control team within Hyderabad
• Currently involved in automation and implementation of monitoring process of Capital Gain and Coupon taxes
• Excellent knowledge of mutual fund’s month/quarter/SFYE/year-end requirements
• Review of TB, P&L and Balance Sheet for all the funds within the team
• Involved in automation and testing of various project, successfully automated year end close-outs, various corporate actions within Franklin Templeton in-house systems
• Expertise gained over fixed income, equity and various emerging market funds
• Gained working knowledge of fund launches and fund class addition/deletion
• Also gained working knowledge about fund merger, both internal and external
• Keeping all the process documents, procedures and workflows for various functions up to date on to SharePoint
• Establish and maintain good working relationships with clients, third parties and colleagues, communicating effectively through formalized reporting and ad hoc liaison
• Ensure contingency plans exist for the work of the team and where necessary contribute to the business continuity plans and tests
• Review weekly and monthly performance calculations for accuracy
• Review month-end closing packages
• Handled team management initiatives including appraisals, staff development and recruitment.

• Daily validation of NAVs and performance of hedge funds in my group
• Reconciling positions with custody
• Checking valuation of various securities and instruments invested into by the fund
• Checking if all the corporate actions have been accounted accurately
• Posting of swap and broker financing expense accruals
• Performing month end review of NAVs and Investor level allocations.

• Completing Internal Audit for all the branches of Zuari Forex Ltd
• Consolidation of branch accounts and finalization of the balance sheet of Zuari Forex Ltd
• Support the statutory auditors with all their queries in audit period
• Completing and filing all the quarterly results and returns in timely manner
• Also work as an advisor accounts for group companies within the group.