Headline

Streamlining Enterprise Payments || Fintech || Ex-PhonePe PG || Ex-Open Financials

About

🚀 Turning Payments into Scalable Growth ☕ Hi, I’m Saikat Kundu - part of the Emerging Business team at Cashfree Payments, where I work closely with fast-growing startups and legacy enterprises to build reliable, conversion-led, and scalable payment infrastructure. At Cashfree Payments, we power some of India’s largest and most trusted businesses by solving for scale, compliance, and operational efficiency across the entire payments lifecycle. From helping D2C brands reduce cart abandonment to enabling NBFCs and financial institutions automate payouts, my role focuses on driving outcome-led adoption of Cashfree’s full-stack payments and banking suite. 🎯 What I Work On: Helping D2C and e-commerce brands boost conversions using One Click Checkout - reducing drop-offs, improving prepaid adoption, and lowering RTOs Enabling NBFCs, fintechs, and financial institutions with Connected Banking & Payouts, built for high-volume, compliant, and real-time fund flows Supporting faster KYC Checks using Cashfree’s Verification Suite - 1-click onboarding, instant KYC, and account verification Partnering with founders, CXOs, and product teams to design payment journeys that scale smoothly from early growth to enterprise volumes 💡 What Sets Cashfree Apart (and what I help clients unlock): Proven ability to scale legacy enterprises without breaking existing systems A complete payments stack - collections, checkout, payouts, and verification - under one roof Enterprise-grade reliability with startup-level agility 💼 Prior Experience: PhonePe PG – At PhonePe, India’s largest UPI player with the #1 market share, I worked on mid-market and growth-led acquisition, helping businesses optimize online collections using advanced payment rails Open (SME Neobank) – Enabled SMEs with cash-flow management and connected banking solutions Nestaway – Zonal growth and account management UrbanClap (Urban Company) – City expansion and operational scale-up 🎓 Education & Skills: PGDM in International Business – JAGSoM, Bangalore Strong exposure to consultative selling, GTM strategy, stakeholder management, and cross-functional execution 🌟 Curious by nature, collaborative by choice, and deeply interested in how payments quietly shape business outcomes. I believe great fintech doesn’t just move money — it removes friction. Let’s connect and build scalable payment journeys together 🚀

Location

Bengaluru

AI stack

claude

ChatGPT

Work experience

Manager - Emerging Business at Cashfree Payments, Jan 2026 - Present · 10 mos, Bengaluru, Driving the Emerging Business Charter at Cashfree Payments - partnering with high-growth startups and founders to build scalable, seamless payment and fintech infrastructure. Passionate about hunting new opportunities, enabling fast-moving businesses, and building long-term value partnerships. Always excited to connect with emerging startups, founders, and ecosystem enablers - let’s build and grow together 🚀

Associate Manager - Emerging Business at PhonePe Payment Gateway, Sep 2024 - Jan 2026 · 1 yr 5 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, - Owned and grew a ₹300+ Cr GMV portfolio of Emerging Business and startup clients. - Led end-to-end merchant acquisition, including onboarding, product solutioning, and payment gateway integrations. - Conducted deep-dive discussions with founders and CXOs to understand business pain points and drive payment gateway wallet-share consolidation - Worked closely with product, integration, compliance, and support teams to ensure smooth go-lives and scalable setups. - Played a key role in improving payment gateway adoption and long-term retention through consultative selling. - Awarded Best Performer for consecutive quarters for consistent revenue and GMV growth. - Represented PhonePe at industry events including Razorpay FTX and Bengaluru Tech Summit, building strong fintech and startup networks.

PM Fellow at NextLeap, Dec 2023 - Mar 2024 · 4 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Business Development Manager at Open Financial Technologies, Dec 2020 - Jul 2024 · 3 yrs 8 mos, Bangalore Urban, Karnataka, India, - Played a key role in helping SMEs and SMBs digitize their businesses by adopting OpenStore and OpenMoney, bringing end-to-end financial operations under a single platform. - Enabled merchants to centralize accounting, cash flow management, current account operations, vendor payouts, collections, payroll, and expense management. - Led top-of-funnel strategy and execution, including segmenting target industries, identifying key decision-makers, and positioning Open’s products as core operating infrastructure - Drove lead generation and outbound motion in collaboration with marketing, leveraging tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Lusha, Apollo, and SignalHire. - Converted MQLs to SQLs through discovery calls and structured product walkthroughs, clearly mapping business pain points to platform capabilities - Owned merchant onboarding, relationship management, and account expansion, cross-selling value-added products such as Current Accounts, Payroll, Expense Management, and Open Capital. - Acted as a trusted point of contact for merchants, working closely with CS, product, and operations teams to ensure adoption, retention, and long-term revenue growth. - Partnered with the product team on UAT, demo environments, and requirement documentation (BRDs/FRDs) to improve product readiness and customer experience. - Managed pipeline hygiene, revenue forecasting, and funnel health while contributing market insights for product and GTM improvements.

Zonal Manager - Business Development and Growth. at NestAway Technologies Pvt Ltd, May 2018 - Oct 2020 · 2 yrs 6 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Primarily responsible for overall Business Growth of the allocated region - South Bangalore. Spearheaded a team of 14 Sales Managers. Launched the Business Operations of Nestaway in new city - Kolkata. Having a steady revenue growth by expanding our platform with offline and online marketing activities and working in cross-functional with the Operations and Product development team to execute strategies and to establish processes.

Education

Master of Business Administration - MBA, International Business, JAGSoM - Jagdish Sheth School of Management

Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.), Electronics and Instrumentation, Biju Patnaik University of Technology, Odisha