Sankalan Sarkar

About Sankalan Sarkar

Seasoned Analytics and Risk Modeling leader with 17 years of experience across global financial institutions, including Citi, TCS, and HSBC. I currently serve as a Senior Vice President at Citi, where I lead the Decision Models team in India within the U.S. Retail Credit Cards business. My leadership has been pivotal in transitioning teams from a monitoring-heavy structure to a high-impact model development unit focused on Innovation, Machine Learning and effective Storytelling.I’ve successfully scaled teams, built robust Performance tracking systems, and enabled the development of regulatory-compliant ML models that deliver measurable lift to business strategies. With deep experience spanning model development, monitoring, and Regulatory interaction, I bring a holistic understanding of credit risk analytics.Beyond modeling, I’ve taken strategic roles in campus hiring, training, and employee engagement, always championing a data-driven and people-centric approach. Known for building high-performing teams, even through challenging transitions, my focus is on sustainable innovation, stakeholder alignment, and business impact.

Experience

1. Senior Vice President

   Citi

   Jan 2023 — Present · Mumbai, IN

   Spearheading the transformation of a legacy team from 60% monitoring to 100% model development post-organization restructuring. Oversaw team expansion from 11 to 24 members, leading end-to-end training and onboarding- Instituted a robust project and performance tracking system that allowed scientific quantification of team output, enabling recognition of individual and team achievements- Founded and leading three core committees—Training, Hiring & Onboarding—to build a structured talent development pipeline ensuring new joiners reached project-readiness in 90 days- Built the Info-Vista committee to promote cross-team learning and industry innovation, and the Fun Committee to foster engagement during a turbulent restructuring period- Enabled team to lead breakthrough ML model developments in Acquisitions, ECM, and Collections, pioneering experiments with AI to reduce effort on repetitive processes and bring in process efficiencies- Maintained top VOE (Voice of Employee) scores across two years despite major organizational changes, reflecting strong team culture and engagement- As Campus Hiring & Internship Lead, implemented a data-driven hiring framework including feedback mechanisms, performance tracking of hires, and strategic campus selection—resulting in key decisions like discontinuing the Campus Ladder program in favor of internship-based hiring.

Education

• Don Bosco School, Liluah

  ICSE/ISC

  1990 — 2003

• Presidency College, Kolkata

  B.Sc, Economics

  2003 — 2006

• Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata

  Masters of Science in Quantitative Economics, Economics,Statistics, Econometrics

  2006 — 2008