Leadership

Sankar Chakraborti
Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer

Sankar joined Acuite in 2014 and since then leading Acuite’s transformation from a full-service credit rating agency to a technology and innovation driven knowledge company. Sankar has almost three decades of experience in data, analytics, risk management, credit ratings, and financial research. Prior to joining Acuité, Sankar worked in the research and ratings divisions of CRISIL Limited and was seconded to S&P in Tokyo.

Sankar is a founding member and former Chairman of the Association of Indian Rating Agencies. He is also the Chairman of SMERA Ratings Private Limited and was responsible for pioneering ESG Ratings in India by setting up ESGRisk.ai.

In addition to his corporate responsibilities, Sankar has served as an Independent Director on the Board of Indian Oil Corporation and was a member of the Working Group constituted by the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Board of India for recommending the provisions of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. He is a member of FICCI's Capital Markets Committee and the Executive Committee of Maharashtra State Council. He also serves on IBA's Standing Committee on MSMEs.

Sankar holds a Master's degree in Business Management and a Bachelor's degree with Physics honours. Outside of work, Sankar enjoys travelling and photography, and has a passion for reading about science, psychology, and the economic history of India.

Antony Jose
Chief Rating Officer

As the Chief Rating Officer, Antony is responsible for governance processes and adherence to extant regulatory guidelines. He is in charge of rating committees, quality of rating execution process and investor outreach. Antony has an overall work-experience of over two decades, spanning roles in Business Development, Rating Operations, and Regulatory Compliance. Prior to Acuité, he worked with CRISIL, and ed-tech start-ups like iDiscoveri Education. He is a Post Graduate in Business Management from SPJIMR, Mumbai.


Antony likes to read, watch movies and swim.

Suman Chowdhury
Chief Economist & Head of Research

As Chief Economist & Head of Research, Suman drives thought leadership initiatives in Acuité Group and provides opinion on domestic as well as global economic and industry trends. He is also responsible for strengthening the group’s research capabilities and expanding the suite of research products and services. With an aggregate experience well over two decades in credit ratings, research and risk, he has worked in leadership roles in ICRA and CRISIL before joining Acuité Ratings & Research. He has also worked in the banking sector as Group Head in Credit Risk Management Group of ICICI Bank. Suman’s past roles have given him exposure to corporate and infrastructure, financial sector as well as structured finance ratings. Suman is an MBA from IIM, Calcutta and a graduate in mechanical engineering from IIT, Kharagpur.

His hobbies include reading and travelling.

Prosenjit Ghosh
Group Chief Business Officer

As the Group Chief Business Officer, Prosenjit is spearheading the growth agenda of Acuité Group of Companies and its footprint in new ventures and geographies. He has over two decades of rich experience in driving consultative sales in areas of research, data, analytics, bespoke solutions, and has implemented various productivity strategies and steered innovative product developments. Prior to joining Acuité, he worked as Director – Key Accounts at CRISIL, and was leading the agenda of increasing wallet share and deepening penetration of the agency across large strategic clients in the financial sector. Prosenjit holds MBA degree from Jadavpur University and has a Bachelor's degree with Physics major from Calcutta University.

Prosenjit enjoys sports and listening to music.

Hitesh Khona
Chief Financial Officer

Hitesh heads the Finance function for Acuite group. Hitesh is a Chartered Accountant with 16 years of experience spanning into finance & accounting, corporate strategy & planning, taxation, fund raising & banking operations. He has been associated with various organizations in the Real Estate, Automobile Manufacturing, IT and Pharmaceutical sectors.

Hitesh likes travelling, playing cricket, photography & listening to music.

Reshma Polasa
Vice President – Process Excellence & Head of Technology

Reshma Polasa leads the IT and Process Excellence functions at Acuité. She is leading the digital transformation of Acuité by re-engineering various processes to achieve greater efficiency and better quality. With over a decade of experience, Reshma has seen practically every function of a rating agency. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing Management from Mumbai University and a Post Graduate Certificate in Business Management from IIM – Calcutta.

Reshma loves to dance, travel to new places, and explore good food.

Chitra Mohan
Vice President – Compliance & Group Company Secretary

Chitra Mohan has been with Acuité since its inception in 2005. An associate member of the ICSI, she has over two decades of experience in the field of secretarial, legal and corporate compliance. Apart from being a Key Managerial Personnel, she is primarFily responsible for overseeing and managing corporate and statutory compliance matters as well as internal policies and procedures.

Her hobbies include reading, listening to music and travelling.


Mr. V Chandrasekaran

Mr. V Chandrasekaran has an overall experience of nearly 40 years in Industry and Development Banking. He superannuated as the Executive Director of SIDBI. He has long and varied experience in policy formulation, development, financing of projects and NBFCs. Mr. Chandrasekaran has had a long association with Acuité and is a member of the Appeal Committee. He was a member on the boards of a few organizations and is associated with National Stock Exchange as a Member of the Grievance Redressal Committee. He is also a member of the Credit Committee of an NBFC. Mr. Chandrasekaran is a graduate in mechanical engineering and holds a master’s degree in financial management from JBIMS.

Mr. Samirendra Chatterjee

Mr. Samirendra Chatterjee is an IAS (Retd.) officer of 1976 batch and is a former Secretary to Government of India. In a career spanning 37 years, he has worked in the Ministries / Departments of Agriculture, Industries, Commerce, Transport, Finance, Social Justice Labour, Coal in the State / Central government. He was Central Provident Fund Commissioner, Member (Private Investment) in National Highways Authority of India and Secretary in the Ministry of Defence.


Mr. K Jayshankar

Mr. K. Jayshankar (Jay) is the Managing Director of Empowered Learning Systems Private Limited (which he set up in 1992 after a bright and rewarding stint with the Tata Group) which focuses on Consulting, Training, Organisation Processes & Coaching. A Certified Management Consultant (CMC) with over 30 years' experience in industry, he specializes in strategic planning, leadership development, change management, and empowering learning throughout organisations. Further, he has been an Executive Coach for senior business managers for many years.

Besides his various stints as visiting faculty at various management schools, Jay is a member of different professional bodies, and has been a speaker at several international conferences in Japan, USA, Panama, Netherlands, Egypt & South Africa.

Jay is a graduate from the Madras Christian College (majoring in economics, with mathematics and statistics as additional subjects), a post-graduate from the reputed Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai (specializing in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations), and holds a Law degree. In 1999, he was one of the chosen few to be selected for the prestigious Chevening Gurukul scholarship to the London School of Economics on Global Leadership & Excellence.

He has also organized & facilitated India’s first Corporate Leadership Expedition Journey (‘Reach for the Sky’) when a team scaled Mount Kilimanjaro (Africa’s highest peak at over 19,340 feet) on August 15th, 2007, timing with India’s 60th Independence celebration. An avid adventure buff, Jay is also a sky diver and a marathoner.



Mr. N. S. Vishwanathan has served as Deputy Governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI). During his nearly four-decade service in RBI, he has handled Banking, Non-Banking and Co-operative banking regulation and supervision besides several other functions including internal governance, internal control and risk monitoring.

Mr. Vishwanathan has also been the Member / Chairman of several key Working Groups and Committees constituted by Government of India and RBI. As Deputy Governor he represented RBI as the Member - Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), Member - Financial Stability Board (FSB) and some of its sub committees, Member and later Co-Chair of FSB Regional Consultative Group for Asia (RCG Asia).

Mr. Vishwanathan has served on the Board of several domestic organizations, notably, as a non-executive Member of the Board of Directors - Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the Punjab & Sind Bank, Dena Bank (now merged with Bank of Baroda) and Punjab National Bank, Member - Bank Board Bureau (BBB), and Member - Governing Council, Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT).

Mr. Vishwanathan is currently the Chairman of the Academic Advisory Council of the College of Supervisors of RBI. He is also a Sr. Fellow at the Centre for Public Policy at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore.  

Mr. Saurabh Shah currently leads the Finance function in Dun & Bradstreet Information Services India Private Limited as Director – Finance. He has been with Dun & Bradstreet for more than 7 years, having worked in India, the UK and the US in senior positions. Saurabh has over 15 years of financial expertise and has played a key role in implementing various internal and external financial projects, as well as streamlining the finance function in the various organizations that he has been associated with till date. Saurabh is a qualified Chartered Accountant (India) and a Certified Public Accountant (USA). 
Ms. Preeta Misra is currently Senior Director of the Credibility & Business Insights Group (CBIG) and Learning & Economic Insights Group (LEIG) at Dun & Bradstreet India. She has been with D&B India for more than 16 years. Ms. Preeta is the Founding Director and Member – Secretary of the Association of Finance Professionals of India. She is also a member of regional CII committees on MSME and ESG. She holds a Master’s in science from Calcutta University and a PGDBM from Birla Institute of Liberal Arts and Management Sciences, Kolkata. 
Prof. (Dr.) Pushpa Trivedi is currently the Professor and In-charge of Economics Group at the Shiv Nadar University in Chennai. She is also a visiting faculty at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Dharwad and Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics, Mumbai. Ms. Trivedi has a rich experience of more than four decades in the field of teaching and research. She is a Post Graduate in Economics and has completed her Ph.D from the University of Mumbai. She is also a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, International Finance Section, Department of Economics, Princeton University. She has more than 45 publications to her credit mainly in the field of Economics and has also made presentations at various national and international conferences. Ms. Trivedi was a member of the IIT Bombay Team that was honoured by the former Hon. Prime Minister, Shri A.B. Vajpayee, for the draft on manufacturing policy titled "Made in My India".
Mr. Hiren Shah is a technopreneur and currently leads Net Square Solutions Pvt. Ltd., a niche and highly regarded information security consulting company, as President & Mentor. Before Net Square, Mr. Shah, was with CRISIL and spearheaded the complete transformation of the technology function to become a business partner as the Chief Information Officer. He uses his deep understanding of the BFSI sector and expertise in IT Infrastructure, Business Solutions and Information Security to advise Boards of companies in Banking, Telecom, Healthcare, E-commerce, Utilities and other emerging sectors on IT Governance, Cyber security and Innovation. Mr. Shah graduated as a Physics and Electronics major from Mumbai University and then qualified as a Chartered Accountant. He is also a CISA and CGEIT.
Priti Sridhar is CEO at the Mariwala Health Initiative (MHI) which is the personal philanthropy of Harsh Mariwala, Chairman Marico. MHI is a grant making, capacity building & advocacy organisation with a focus on mental health. Priti leads MHI's rights-based work and oversees project management, grant management and advocacy initiatives. She has almost 25 years of work experience in both for profit and not for profit organizations. Priti has worked extensively in Finance, Strategy and HR and is passionate about women's rights, mental health, and child rights. She aims to combine these experiences with her interests in rights- based mental health work to spotlight and support organizations and leaders focused on community-based interventions. Priti is an alumnus of TISS and XLRI and has trained in Transactional Analysis for 5 years. 

Sankar joined Acuite in 2014 and since then leading Acuite’s transformation from a full-service credit rating agency to a technology and innovation driven knowledge company. Sankar has almost three decades of experience in data, analytics, risk management, credit ratings, and financial research. Prior to joining Acuité, Sankar worked in the research and ratings divisions of CRISIL Limited and was seconded to S&P in Tokyo.

Sankar is a founding member and former Chairman of the Association of Indian Rating Agencies. He is also the Chairman of SMERA Ratings Private Limited and was responsible for pioneering ESG Ratings in India by setting up ESGRisk.ai.

In addition to his corporate responsibilities, Sankar has served as an Independent Director on the Board of Indian Oil Corporation and was a member of the Working Group constituted by the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Board of India for recommending the provisions of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. He is a member of FICCI's Capital Markets Committee and the Executive Committee of Maharashtra State Council. He also serves on IBA's Standing Committee on MSMEs.

Sankar holds a Master's degree in Business Management and a Bachelor's degree with Physics honours. Outside of work, Sankar enjoys travelling and photography, and has a passion for reading about science, psychology, and the economic history of India.

As the Chief Rating Officer, Antony is responsible for governance processes and adherence to extant regulatory guidelines. He is in charge of rating committees, quality of rating execution process and investor outreach. Antony has an overall work-experience of over two decades, spanning roles in Business Development, Rating Operations, and Regulatory Compliance. Prior to Acuité, he worked with CRISIL, and ed-tech start-ups like iDiscoveri Education. He is a Post Graduate in Business Management from SPJIMR, Mumbai. 
As Chief Economist & Head of Research, Suman drives thought leadership initiatives in Acuité Group and provides opinion on domestic as well as global economic and industry trends. He is also responsible for strengthening the group’s research capabilities and expanding the suite of research products and services. With an aggregate experience well over two decades in credit ratings, research and risk, he has worked in leadership roles in ICRA and CRISIL before joining Acuité Ratings & Research. He has also worked in the banking sector as Group Head in Credit Risk Management Group of ICICI Bank. Suman’s past roles have given him exposure to corporate and infrastructure, financial sector as well as structured finance ratings. Suman is an MBA from IIM, Calcutta and a graduate in mechanical engineering from IIT, Kharagpur.