No Sector or Industry would have experienced the growth it has seen without a few key individuals to influence it. These individuals have helped push the limits and explore uncharted waters. Over the past year, the fintech industry has seen a dramatic shift towards digital. With the ongoing pandemic, people have shifted their activities and transaction to make it entirely online. And under the guidance of these influencers, the Fintech and BFSI space has not only kept up, but surpassed the expectations in terms of keeping up with these shifting needs.
In order to call out a few of these individuals and give then the honour they deserve, The Digital Fifth has curated a list of India’s Top 30 Fintech Influencers from across the Fintech and BFSI space. This list has been made based on their contribution to the Fintech ecosystem, the impact and knowledgeability rather than their social media score.
Anurag Sinha
Co Founder of OneCard
Anurag Sinha is the Co- Founder and CEO of OneCard, a startup reimagining the conventional credit card by providing a new generation of credit built with full-stack technology-based features. OneCard is backed by investors like Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners, and Hummingbird Ventures. Before founding OneCard, Anurag was the Co-Founder of Walnut, a personal finance app, which was acquired by Capital Float in August 2018. Previously, Anurag worked at ICICI Bank in different leadership roles across divisions like payment solutions, structured finance, etc. He also served on the Board of Sarvatra Technologies, Pune.
Arif Khan
Chief Digital Officer at NPCI
Arif Khan is the Chief Digital Officer at NPCI. He leads the strategic planning for digital transformation initiatives of the organization which is aimed at growing NPCI’s new products portfolio basis customer needs and industry trends. The National Payments Corporation of India an umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India.
Arindam Das
CEO at DMI Consumer Credit
Arindam leads the Digital Consumer and SME Finance businesses at DMI Finance. With almost two decades of experience in various verticals including Business Development, Operations, Risk Management and Audit, he has conceptualised, built and scaled large teams in Consumer, SME and Corporate Lending. DMI is an NBFC which operates on a Partnership model with technology companies. DMI gives fintech startups API access to sandboxes thus helping them develop financial products for their target population.
B.G. Mahesh
Co-Founder at Sahamati
B.G Mahesh is the co-founder of Sahamati, a Collective of the Account Aggregator ecosystem. It is an initiative that enables individuals to have greater control over their data helps improve financial inclusion in the country. Technocrat and an innovative thinker, Mahesh pioneered digital technologies in Indian languages way before Digital India charter took shape. Mahesh founded Greynium Information Technologies Pvt Ltd a company that owns India’s largest multi-lingual portal, Oneindia.com.
Bhavik Vasa
Founder of GetVantage
Bhavik Vasa is the founder of Mumbai-based smart alternative funding platform GetVantage. Get Vantage is a platform that provides revenue-based financing for business owners, without the need for them to dilute equity or ownership. Bhavik has Domain Expertise across FinTech, Digital Payments, Mobile technologies & Financial Services. He has previously worked as Chief Growth Officer at the payments startup, ItzCash and was a founding member of Radical Payments and ISTS Worldwide.
Dhirendra Mahyavanshi
Co Founder of Turtlemint
Dhirendra Mahyavanshi is the Co Founder of Turtlemint, an online Insurance platform that aims to simplify its customer’s insurance buying decision. Turtlemint has partnered with over 40 insurers in the market and currently boasts a turnaround time of under 10 mins.
Dr. Kshama Fernandes
MD & CEO of Northern Arc
Kshama is the CEO of Northern Arc Capital and its founding Chief Risk Officer. Over the last decade, she has been closely involved in setting up the business and taking it to scale. Kshama has an MBA, a Ph.D. in Finance, and is a GARP certified Financial Risk Manager. Prior to joining Northern Arc, she was the Head of the Finance Department at the Goa Institute of Management. She has been a member of several committees set up by the Government of India related to capital markets as well as financial inclusion, and has extensive experience across policy, financial advisory, consulting, and academia.
Hero Choudhary
Partner at BEENEXT
Hero Choudhary is a Partner at BEENEXT, a venture capital firm investing in startups from India, Southeast Asia, Japan, and USA. He has over 14 years of experience in the Venture capital industry. leading many multi-bagger investments in consumer internet and FinTech growth companies in public markets. His portfolio includes startups like Phi Commerce, Coinbase, 1mg etc.
Ishan Bansal
Co Founder of Groww
Ishan Bansal is the Co-Founder of Groww.in, a Bangalore based online investment startup that targets First time investors and millennials. Groww enables investors to open an account online and transact in mutual funds and stocks online. The startup which was founded in 2017, currently has a funding of over $59million and over 50,000 users.
Krish Gopalakrishnan
Chairperson of RBI Innovation Hub
Kris Gopalakrishnan is the Co Founder of Infosys and the first Chairperson of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) new innovation hub, which aims to promote advancement in the financial sector using technology. Gopalakrishnan is currently the Chief Mentor of Start-up Village, an incubation Hub for startups. Recognized as a global business and technology thought leader, he was the president of India’s apex industry chamber Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for 2013-14, and served as one of the co-chairs of the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2014.
Kunal Shah
Founder of Cred
The founder of Freecharge has returned to the Fintech arena with Cred, a financial services platform targeting consumers with high creditworthiness. Cred is a members-only app which rewards customers with exclusive rewards for paying credit card bill. He has already raised USD 25 million in funding for his startup, with Sequoia Capital and Ribbit Capital leading the financing round.
Neeraj Sinha
Head – Retail & Consumer Banking at SBM Bank
Neeraj Sinha is the head of Retail & Consumer Bank at State Bank of Mauritius – India. SBM Bank India was the first foreign bank in India to obtain a banking licence from the Reserve Bank of India to operate as a Wholly Owned Subsidiary in January 2019. Dubbed as one of the most fintech-friendly banks in India, it currently partners with a plethora of Fintechs like PayNearby, Karbon Cards, Enkash etc to help extend banking services to a larger segment of the Indian population.
Nikhil Kamath
Co-Founder and CIO of Zerodha & True Beacon
Nikhil is the co-founder of India’s largest discount broker with more than 1 million clients executing 10% of daily retail trading volumes across NSE, BSE, MCX. Interestingly, the firm has remained bootstrapped through the last 9 years of its journey. Nikhil is also the co- founder of Rainmatter, a venture capital fund backed by Zerodha and True Beacon, Alternative Investment Fund.
Nitin Gupta
Founder and CEO of Uni
With startups like PayU and Ola Fianncials under his belt, Nitin Gupta is back in the fintech space with his Credit startup Uni. Uni has already raised $18.5Mn in seed funding despite not being MVP ready, proving Nitin Gupta’s credibility in the ecosystem. He is also an active angel investor whose portfolio includes startups like OfBusiness, BharatPe, Trell, Mosaic Wellness, GroMo, Ripple Hire and CoHo
Priya Sharma
Co-Founder of ZestMoney
Priya Sharma is the CO Founder and COO of ZestMoney, one of the largest consumer lending fintechs in the country. Her experience in areas like expertise in investments, acquisitions, the strategy has been a major contributor in helping ZestMoney caters to its more than 5 million registered consumers.
Raj N Phani
Founder and Chairman of Zaggle
Raj N. Phani, Founder and Chairman of Zaggle, has over 20 years of business consulting experience. He founded Zaggle in 2011 as a network-agnostic payment platform on which merchants and consumers could seamlessly interact. A start-up evangelist, a strategist, and a serial entrepreneur who previously worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt. Ltd. and eYantra, Raj has extensive experience in setting up a business, structuring it, driving the sales, and scaling it to the next level.
Rajat Agarwal
Managing Director of Matrix Partners India
Rajat Agarwal is a Managing Director at Matrix Partners India. Matrix is a US-based private equity investment firm focusing on venture capital investments. Is investments focus on segments like Fintech, Ed-Tech and Consumer brands. His current fintech portfolio includes startups like Razorpay, Credit Vidya ZipLoan, Avail Finance, Elemential Labs, LiquiLoans, OneCard, Jupiter, Ola Financial Services, GoDutch etc.
Rajesh Kumar
MD & CEO of TransUnion CIBIL Limited
Rajesh Kumar is the Managing Director and CEO of TransUnion CIBIL Limited. Prior to joining TransUnion CIBIL Limited, Rajesh was the Group Head for Retail Credit and Risk at HDFC Bank where he was the key member of the leadership team responsible for conceptualizing, managing and growing the bank’s retail credit portfolio comprising consumption loans, commercial loans, and vehicle loans along with the payment business of the bank. With two decades of experience at HDFC Bank, Rajesh helped grow its retail lending book to USD 50 billion and led teams comprising of more than 3,000 bank officers
Ramgopal Subramani
Chief Operating Officer of Perfios
Ram is the Chief Operating Officer of Perfios, a leading product technology company enabling businesses to aggregate structured and unstructured data, curate, analyze and help in decision-making. He has over 26 years of experience in Product Development for technology companies, varying from startups, mid-size to large software houses like Microsoft, and an in-depth understanding of business, technology, and processes that make a software product engineering organization to not only succeed, but sustain the momentum through constant innovation.
Ravishankar G
Managing Director at Sequoia Capital
Ravishankar G V is a Managing Director with Sequoia Capital in India. His portfolio includes segments like Consumer tech, Consumer, Education and Financial Services. He currently serveS on the boards of fintechs like Capital Float, Five Star finance, Finova Capital, India Shelter Finance Corporation and Turtlemint. Ravishankar has been a director at Sequoia for the past 14 years.
Reeju Datta
Co-Founder of Cashfree
Reeju Datta is the Co Founder of Cashfree, a Y Combinator backed, payments and banking technology startup that enables businesses in India to collect payments online and make payouts. The platform is currently being used by over 50,000 businesses to help them fulfill their payment needs like vendor payouts, wage payouts, bulk refunds etc.
Sameer Brij Verma
Managing Director at Nexus Venture Partners
Sameer is a Managing Director at Nexus Venture Partners, one of India’s first homegrown VC brands with a $1.6 billion early stage venture fund . At Nexus, he has led investments in Postman, Unacademy, Hasura.io, Infra. market, Zolo, Ultrahuman, Zomato (via RoadRunnr), Quandl (NASDAQ), Goodera, MayaData, Joveo, Jumbotail, MyUpchar, Goals101 & Indix (Avalara).
Sasidhar Thumuluri
CEO & MD of SUB-K Impact Solutions
Sasidhar Thumuluti is the MD and CEO of SUB-K Impact Solutions, a digital finance (Fintech) company that offers affordable, accessible and scalable financial and payment services to BoP segment. Sasidhar is an International development professional with two decades of experience in leadership positions managing business, investments and advisory in financial inclusion, digital finance and economic development.
Shanti Ekambaram
Group President – Consumer Banking at Kotak Mahindra Bank
Shanti Ekambaram is the Group president of Consumer Banking at Kotak Mahindra Bank and a member of the Banks Executive Board that drives and oversees the Kotak Mahindra Groups growth charter. She has also been recognized as among the top 100 most influential women in the country by Fortune Magazine.
Shashank Kumar
Co Founder of Razorpay
Shahsank Kumar is the Co-Founder, CTO and Tech architect behind India ‘s first Payment Gateway turned Neobank, Razorpay. Founded in 2014, The product suit of Razor Pay Caters to the end -to-end payment needs of its customers. Over the course of 6 years, the company has morphed from B2B Payment Gateway into a Financial Conglomerate.
Smrithi Ravichandran
Business Head at Flipkart
Smrithi Ravichandran is the Business Head of Payments, Consumer & Commercial Lending & Insuretech at Flipkart. She is an experienced e-commerce leader with an interest in technology & internet ventures and has vast experience in different aspects of technology business – business development, large deal closures, creation of world class products to solve consumer needs, P&L handling of the organization and drive to positive bottom-line, demand generation and new age marketing driven by technology.
Sudipta Roy
Group Head at ICICI Bank
Sudipta Roy is the group head of Unsecured Assets, Cards, Payment Solutions & Millennial Banking at ICICI bank. He is a seasoned expert in Consumer Banking, Payments and FinTech professional with over 20 years of experience in Asia. Additional competencies include an in-depth understanding of payments systems with specific focus on transit systems, card technology and operations systems having designed and customized a core cards system from scratch during a green field launch process.
T.R Ramachandran
Group Country Manager India & South Asia of Visa
T R Ramachandran is the Group Country Manager if Visa for India and South Asia. With more than 25 years of experience across banking, Cards & payment products, investments, insurance and Fintech across Asian markets, he brings with him, a strong understanding of the India and South Asia marketplace and relationships with regulators, media and industry stakeholders. Visa is a global payments technology company that enables consumers, businesses, banks and governments to use digital currency.
Varun Dua
CEO of Acko General Insurance
Varun Dua is the Founder and CEO of Acko India’s first Insurtech Company. It provides consumer insurance products that are personalised to the customer using data alaytics to analyze customer behaviour. The startup, which was founded in 2017, has currently received a funding of $43million. It is backed by Amazon, Accel Partners, SAIF Partners, N.R. Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures, Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan, and Hemendra Kothari of DSP Group.
Vinay Agrawal
Chief Executive Officer of Angel Broking Group
Vinay Agrawal is the CEO of Angel Broking, one of India’s largest broking houses. He has been a part of the company for the past 20 years and has been a major catalyst in the company’s adoption of technology for business enhancement. Under his leadership, Angel broking has also recently opened itself to API integration via SmartAPI. Angel broking currently manages ₹192,830 million in client assets and over 2.7 million operational broking accounts.
