If there weren’t a publicist waiting for me at Cellini, the excellent Italian restaurant at Mumbai’s Grand Hyatt, there would be little chance of me identifying Srikanth Velamakanni, the CEO of Fractal Analytics.
When she ushers him to my table, I note that Velamakanni looks not a day older than a fresh-faced 21-year-old engineering graduate. And the suit—without a tie—doesn’t add any years. Yet, at 34, Velamakanni is chief executive of one of India’s top analytics firms (more on the fine art that is analytics later).
Prophetic: In March 2007, Velamakanni’s company built a mathematical cricket model that predicted West Indies’ upset win over Pakistan in the World Cup.
Velamakanni is an intense man. When he speaks he leans forward purposefully, his suit jacket rolling up into folds behind his neck, his palms pressing on to the tabletop. His answers are precise and, to be honest, a relief for a journalist looking for a clean quote.
Perhaps it is the mathematical, data-intensive nature of his work that makes him so ordered and precise. Or perhaps the intensity is an outcome of the pressure of guiding his company through a turbulent period in its history. Begun in 2000 by five Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad alumni, at a Mumbai flat, the company grew rapidly, winning an enviable base of domestic and international clients before running into leadership turmoil about a year ago. Two of the five partners left in circumstances that were said to be less than cordial.
When I ask Velamakanni about the crisis that was widely reported in the media, his face falls and he goes quiet. “This is a tough question for me,” he says. I try to coax him along: Was it a leadership issue? A disagreement on the forward path for Fractal?
Finally when he is ready, Velamakanni explains: “If I were to look back at it all…in hindsight…it was all ego. Nothing else.”
However, understanding this clash of egos involves going back to the genesis of Fractal Analytics and Velamakanni’s career moves after business school. As we crack open cans of Red Bull, he recounts the story.
In 1998, Velamakanni joined ANZ Investment Bank from business school in the structured debt department. It was an interesting job, Velamakanni recalls, and he got a chance to work with clients such as Enron and in sectors such as aircraft finance. A move to ICICI Bank’s structured products group followed—“due to lifestyle issues”—and this is where Srikanth and Pranay Agarwal, eventually a co-founder at Fractal, worked on India’s first collateralized bond obligation (CBO) in 1999.
CBOs, for the uninitiated, are similar to those subprime mortgages that have walloped global markets out of shape over the past few months. “Friends point fingers at us and say we’re behind this financial disaster,” Velamakanni laughs.