Anshuman Prasad
Class of 2004


 


Can you tell us a little about your family background/ history?
My father was a geologist (a PhD from McMaster in Canada), but had studied a lot of management and finance. Later on in his career he had a few stints at the CEO-level in the oil exploration sector in private and public sector firms. In some ways his work-style still influences me. Even as a CEO my father was very hands-on in the technical aspects and was proud of his deep knowledge of oil exploration and geology.

Briefly describe your personal and professional achievements (including recent awards/ special projects).
Professionally, I have had the good fortune of being in entrepreneurial roles for the past 7-8 years in my current company, CRISIL Ltd. With CRISIL (and earlier Irevna), I have set-up 2 sizeable businesses. In 2011, I moved to London to build the Risk Modeling business and in the past 3 years we have built a truly world-class set-up and compete with the biggest names in this area. We now have a large world-class team of Quant PhDs, Statisticians and Econometricians that operate from centres across the globe. The first business that I had set up was the Derivatives vertical. I took over this vertical in 2006 when it was a very small and transformed it into a global business which still contributes a substantial amount to CRISIL revenues.
Another important achievement is being able to present our work at top Global Risk Conferences such as RISK USA and the GARP Annual Summit alongside famous academics such as Prof. John Hull and Prof. Rangarajan Sandaram. These were idols for us while we were studying in ISB.

Tell us about your profile pre-ISB, and recap your professional life after ISB, including your career progression.
My background prior to ISB was a little different in the sense that I had very little corporate work-ex. I had completed an MS in Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and had worked for less than a year in internships and academic/research positions. After ISB, I joined a start-up called Irevna in a pure Finance role (Equity Research). The firm got acquired by CRISIL in 2005 but the start-up culture remained and I quickly progressed up the ranks to become the Global Head of a 100-strong business by 2008, i.e. within 4 years of passing out from B-School.

How do you think your time at ISB has contributed to your career and personal growth?
I think it has been one of the best decisions to go to ISB and I feel I got the timing absolutely right. I entered ISB with an open mind and wasn't fixated on any particular area. Through a process of natural selection and eliminations (read: rejections at campus interviews for marketing roles), I got into hardcore Finance. And somehow now when I look back - those were exactly the courses that I really liked the most at ISB. Being taught Finance from some of the leading lights in the academic world like Dr. Viral Acharya, Raghuram Rajan, Prof Rangarajan etc., has given me the confidence to pick up the most complex areas and do well in them.

What do you enjoy most about your current career position?
The daily entrepreneurial challenges and the opportunity to interact with leading business leaders and academicians in conferences, one-on-ones and through the course of our cutting edge work.

Briefly describe a typical day at work, in a way that illuminates the kind of challenges and opportunities your role involves.
A typical day at work consists of a mix of client meetings, internal team meetings, reading up on new happenings, preparing thought leadership articles or presentations and finally, conducting recruitment interviews (as good quant talent is always in short supply these days).

What is the next new thing in the industry or vertical you are working in? Are there any trends that you can identify?
The Risk Analytics space is very happening right now and we have found our sweet spot in a crowded marketplace. However, big data and analytics as a whole in the financial services space is quite exciting. We already do some very interesting stuff in this area.

What was the main highlight or most memorable aspect of your programme at the ISB?
It’s hard to pick a favourite. It would have to be one of the Finance courses.

If you could offer a word of advice to the current class at ISB, what would it be?
It pays to build depth in a particular subject area. But, don't be too hung up on it to extent of not having fun exploring other areas. You never know what might be useful.

How do you feel you can contribute to ISB?
I have heard that Finance placements have been relatively weak at ISB in recent years. I would be happy to help improve things in this area.


© 2015 Indian School of Business, Disclaimer.