Atul Khemuka

About Atul Khemuka

I’m a lending and credit card executive, investor, strategic advisor, and AI strategist with over two decades of experience building and scaling credit, risk, growth, and analytics platforms. I founded and built CreditShop (later rebranded as Mercury Financial), a credit card startup that grew into one of the most successful consumer credit platforms in the near-prime segment — ultimately sold to Atlanticus. As Chief Intelligence Officer and Chief Growth Officer, I helped scale the business from startup to over 2 million customers and $3 billion in balances, pioneering AI-driven strategies across acquisition, risk, and analytics.As Chief Analytics Officer, my expertise spans credit risk, portfolio strategy, AI governance, and risk management. I bring hands-on technical fluency in Python, SQL, and R to drive data-driven growth, smarter decisioning, and scalable impact. I’ve also led high-performing machine learning and risk modeling teams, developing and deploying models across the entire credit lifecycle — from acquisition and underwriting to early-warning and collections optimization.Earlier in my career at Barclaycard US, I built acquisition strategies for multiple co-brand partners, acquired more than 1 million customers in the near-prime space, and led advanced analytics and modeling teams that delivered over $70 million in incremental profit through segmentation and lifetime-value optimization.

Experience

1. Strategic Advisor

   Cogniwareai

   Nov 2025 — Present

Education

• Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University

  Bachelor of Engineering (BE)

  1996 — 1999

• University of South Florida

  Masters in Operation Research

  2001 — 2003