Numbers are captivating entities. They have enabled the mathematical revolution. Mathematics, in turn, made the finance world.

Technological forces have now transformed finance into a completely new world called Fintech. And mastering Fintech needs a different kind of leadership.

Mr Anand Ramakrishnan, Managing Director of Equiniti India Private Limited, is that powerful Fintech leader. He was always fascinated by numbers and later by Finance during his post-graduation.

He knew he would always end up doing something related to management and finance. He also enjoys setting up and growing new businesses. The challenges are fascinating, and the number of twists and turns along the way needs one to be flexible and be able to think of their feat, which Anand finds exciting.

As with any other child, Anand looked up to his parents as he grew up, and you could say they were his first role models. In his professional world, there were many from whom he has learned and many who have contributed to his growth.

Anand carries an experience of 20+ years in his career in the technology sector and has held prominent roles in various organisations as a CEO, Chief Strategy Officer, and CIO, among others.

He joined Equiniti India from Quess Corp, where he was the CEO of MFX India, an Insure-tech Organization focused on Insurance and Qtek Systems, an IT Managed Services business he incubated. He was also a Director on the Board of Conneqt Business Solutions (formerly Tata Business Solutions), one of India’s largest BPO Organizations.

During his career, he handled management roles in Wipro, HCL Infosystems, CMS IT Services, and Sonata Software. His career included overseeing operations in North & Latin America and Europe and leading expansion into Southeast Asia, Japan, and the Middle East. He has built multiple businesses and turned them into profitable entities in the past, which have helped him finetune his abilities in business strategy, leadership and P&L management.

That is why he is Insights Success’ one amongst the ‘Powerful Men in Business-2022’

Equiniti India, Capturing the Globe

EQ India is EQ’s Global India Captive (GIC). It is an extended arm of the global Fintech business and employs highly competent professionals delivering complex transactions. EQ India operates seamlessly with its entities in the UK, Netherlands, Poland, and USA. It is the fastest-growing geography in the group in providing financial technology services to EQ’s clients. EQ India provides sophisticated processing and payment services and effective technology solutions for increasingly complex and regulated markets.

EQ India’s services include business-centric process delivery such as shareholder services, estate registrations, payment reissues, transfers, multi-currency settlement and central reconciliation, investment services, pension solutions, KYC, AML and customer experience centres. These are core business processes of EQ that positively impact its customers across geographies.

EQ India also drives financial services internally, wherein it delivers processes in core functions of F&A with quality, value-addition and transformation as its key drivers. Some of the key services delivered by EQ India are procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, record-to-report, payroll management, master data management, statutory reporting, group reporting and internal audit.

In IT, EQ India provides application development and support, software quality assurance, IT infrastructure support services, messaging, telephony and Infosec services.

EQ India focuses on excellence in service delivery while upholding its values of integrity and openness in its dealings. It leverages innovation, transformation and automation to deliver contemporary solutions that cater to its clients’ requirements.

EQ India employs some of the best people in India in their respective fields. In just a few years, EQ India has grown to 20% of its global employee base and continues to grow. At EQ India, Anand offers exciting challenges and significant professional growth to his teams. He believes in nurturing talent and having his teams express themselves. At the same time, he encourages his employees to have fun at work.

Anand says firmly, “We believe in diversity and inclusion and have one of the best diversity ratios in the industry. We look into the future with a lot of optimism for growth and becoming one of the largest GICs in the global shareholder management industry.”

EQ Group, a Fintech Leader

Equiniti Group (EQ) is a technology-led financial service and shareholder management, specialist. As per Anand, their clients trust them to hold 70 million shareholder records, send £90 billion in payments each year, look after 1.1 million share plan investors and interact with 27 million shareholders and pensioners.

Their technology and services cover share registration, share plans and governance solutions in the UK, equity compensation and related services for North American corporates, regulatory technology and services for credit, remediation and risk/fraud, pensions administration, payments and software.

Over 70% of the FTSE 100 and 15% of the NYSE rely on EQ Group to help them respond to the challenges of an increasingly complex and regulated world. EQ Group provides specialist solutions powered by technology, which more than 5,000 employees deliver across geographies.

It delivers its services and solutions through a suite of technology platforms, which provide resilient, enterprise-grade technology and functionality to its clients. This technology underpins its strategy of expanding its service offering while adapting to changing client and regulatory requirements.

Anand further says that their infrastructure is configured to be secure and resilient. The scalability of their platforms supports their business growth, as they process increasingly large volumes of data and transactions. They also have a track record of making targeted acquisitions of companies with exciting technologies, which opens new growth areas for them.

As UK’s leading share registration services company, EQ has been recognised as one of the UK’s Superbrands for the last four consecutive years.

EQ group has also received the following awards in the recent past:

• Financial Times Diversity Leaders 2020
• Corporate Content Awards 2020
• Payment Provider Award at The Rewards 2019
• Digital Engagement Award at Verint EMEA Annual Customer Awards

Challenger’s Craft

EQ India has grown from strength to strength over the last few years, and we continue this exciting growth journey. Anand always believes in the growth of not just the number of people but also in the growth in the quality of work that his team does. To develop an organisation, it is important to keep the teams motivated with challenges, which will come from doing more interesting and challenging assignments rather than just operational tasks. This is the direction in which EQ India is headed. Anand wants his teams to think more innovatively, particularly using technology, and ensure they move from being doers to influencers.

As he has already mentioned, Anand enjoys setting up new businesses, growing into new geographies, and setting up new services. And most of his challenges have been during these times. The challenges are different, based on the business or geography he is working on. Setting up the cloud business and setting up a managed services business from scratch  were extremely challenging, and so was being one of the first into a new geography.

And as with anyone else who has lived through the last two years, COVID has been a significant challenge, both professionally and personally, the effects of which continue to linger. However, he says that they at EQ India all hope the worst is behind them.

According to Anand, he would define a successful career as one where he should look back and say he has made a positive difference to the world and people around him. As long as he keeps working towards that, he is on the right path.

Resonating Excellence

EQ India has recently been awarded the “Best Brand” award for 2021 by Economic Times.

Its recent awards include:

• Export Excellence Award by Department of Commerce (Govt of India), 2021
• Best Finance Team of The Year Award at the CFO Summits & Awards, 2021
• Best in Onboarding Solution Award by World Training and Development Congress, 2021
• Excellence in Training Award at Asia Pacific HRM Congress, 2019
• Tamil Nadu Best Employer Brand Award, 2019

Breaking the COVID Spell

Anand thinks one of the most essential things that COVID-19 taught us is the ability to open our minds and look at things very differently. It has helped reduce the use of the word ‘impossible’ substantially. A couple of years ago, who would have thought you could run an entire sales cycle on Teams without physical meetings? Who would have thought Food Delivery Apps would be a lifesaver for many people? Who would have thought ‘touch-less’ is the way of the future, particularly since man is such a social animal? COVID-19 has opened our minds to new ways of thinking, and he thinks for the first time, people/businesses are asking for new technologies, rather than it being the other way round always.

In his own company, they are working on various technologies and automation that drive their business for the future, thinking a few years ahead.

Exemplary Quotient of the Future

Being in the financial services industry and being industry leaders, their future is about how quickly they grow and from an EQ India standpoint, how much more they can contribute to the EQ Group’s growth.

Anand thinks their future is indeed looking positive. They are well on the way to becoming an employer of choice in the Fintech space in India.