Headline

Head of Special Projects - Analytics @ IDFC FIRST Bank | Applied ML, LLM & Agentic Systems

About

More than twenty-five years in banking — retail, product, digital, and process consulting across India, the Caribbean, Bermuda, and Europe. In 2022 I made a deliberate move into data science, backed by an M.Sc. in Business Analytics from BITS Pilani. I now lead Special Projects Analytics at IDFC FIRST Bank. My team builds AI systems for problems most banks hand to external vendors, tuned to how Indian banking actually works. What we build goes into production — we don't stop at proofs of concept. The work sits across digital assets, lending, risk, and other customer-facing areas, embedded in the bank's core stack. How the team operates: – - Problem framing before modelling. Most AI failures are scoping failures. - Wide technical surface — classical ML, NLP, computer vision, LLM pipelines, agentic systems — chosen per problem, not per trend. – Real production constraints: latency, cost, messy real-world inputs. – People who can take a solution to a complex real world problem from whiteboard to deployed system without losing the plot. Earlier: process consulting at Oracle Financial Services across multiple banks and geographies; reengineering at CIBC FirstCaribbean in Barbados; part of the start-up team which launched Kotak Mahindra Bank, started out at ICICI Bank.

Location

Mumbai

AI stack

claude

cursor

langchain

opencode

Work experience

Head of Special Projects - Analytics at IDFC FIRST Bank, May 2022 - Present · 4 yrs 3 mos, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, • Lead a data science team to develop production AI systems across lending, risk, and customer-facing areas. • Manage the full lifecycle of projects, including problem framing, architecture, modeling, and ongoing monitoring. • Employ a broad technical range, utilizing classical ML, NLP, CV, and LLM/agentic systems tailored to specific problems.

Head - Customer Experience Analytics (Measurements & Insights) at IDFC FIRST Bank, Apr 2021 - Oct 2022 · 1 yr 7 mos, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, The CX central monitoring function — real-time service quality, journey analytics, workforce strategy and optimisation

Head - Business Process Reengineering (Customer Experience) at IDFC FIRST Bank, Jan 2020 - Apr 2021 · 1 yr 4 mos, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Responsible for removing root causes of unnecessary customer friction in the Customer Experience journey.

Consulting Solution Director, FLEXCUBE Consulting at Oracle in Financial Services, Jan 2015 - Jan 2020 · 5 yrs 1 mo, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, • Advised banks across various geographies on restructuring lending, payments, and trade finance, focusing on digital transformation for banks. • Developed digital roadmaps for onboarding and customer-centric lending process design within risk frameworks.

Process Reengineering Consultant at Bermuda Commercial Bank, Sep 2014 - Dec 2014 · 4 mos, Bermuda, Short engagement covering operating policy, SWIFT reconciliation automation, and process optimisation across several business areas.

Consultant – Process Reengineering at CIBC First Caribbean International Bank, Jul 2012 - Apr 2014 · 1 yr 10 mos, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Process Lead – Retail Loans Business Process Management (BPM) Project The work package included: •Retail loans and business continuity procedures, •Performance measurement model, •Tracking the process performance of the implementation, •Process support to the project team and users.

Manager - Process Mapping & Reengineering at CIBC First Caribbean International Bank, Aug 2009 - Jun 2012 · 2 yrs 11 mos, Barbados, Led process reengineering across the bank's multi-country Caribbean footprint through the post-2008 cost environment. Ran a multi-country retail lending transformation end to end; centralised account opening into a single low-cost centre; rationalised branch risk controls; supported the bank's service modernisation including mobile banking and cards.

Vice President - Direct Banking at Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited, Oct 2007 - Jul 2009 · 1 yr 10 mos, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Led a team which managed a large and diversified product and service offering consisting of debit cards, internet banking, ATM, doorstep banking, mobile & SMS banking, online payment cards and online payment solutions. As product and channel owners, my team was responsible for developing products, increase penetration and usage of alternate banking channels and reducing the high cost associated with managing the network.

Dy Vice President - Direct Banking at Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited, Feb 2007 - Sep 2007 · 8 mos, Mumbai Metropolitan Region

Dy Vice President - Business Analysis & Controls at Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited, Mar 2006 - Jan 2007 · 11 mos, Mumbai Area, India, Business Analysis – Retail Banking P&L, target setting, measuring performance and providing strategic inputs to the retail liabilities management committee. Branch Controls – a new unit setup to identify and control AML and operational risk with close co-ordination with Compliance, Risk and Audit

Education

Master of Science - MS, Business Analytics, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani

MMS, Personnel Management, SVKM's Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS)

Public links

github: https://github.com/manurana26770