Employee Stories

Pradnya Bulusu

Data Analyst careers at Standard Chartered

Demystifying the work of Data Analysts in Wealth & Retail Banking

Data analysis has become an essential skill in today’s world as it helps companies and organisations to draw valuable conclusions and support vital business decisions.

In this content series, we’ll be meeting the people behind the data, talking about their career journeys and what they love about their roles.

Here we hear from Pradnya from the Data Analytics team about her career journey and experience.

Why did you start a career in the data analytics field?

I studied Chemical Engineering in university, and I love the subject Statistics and Calculus and especially A/B testing. I am fascinated when I solve problems using data which is why I decided to start my career in the data analytics field.

Can you describe your career journey with Standard Chartered?

My relationship with Standard Chartered started when I worked as a data analytics consultant for an external agency and Standard Chartered was my client at that time. I came to the Standard Chartered office every day and worked closely with the Data Analytics team to help solve data problems. I was impressed by the team and was attracted by the projects and exposure of the team. I was lucky enough to join Standard Chartered as a full-time Data Analyst one year later.

What is your role at Standard Chartered?

I am part of the Data Analytics team for Wealth and Retail Banking. I’m based in Bangalore and support Malaysian Deposits and Business Banking Analytics.

We design and evaluate campaigns to help the business to make strategic decisions. For example, we analysed data and provided insights to understand the profiles of the most profitable clients. We found out how many clients were sourced by month, how long they took to make their first deposit, how many clients opened an account but never used it, and if there was a pattern. We also found out what our clients first spent on and what products they took up next.

We used different tools and models such as descriptive statistics, clustering and testing our hypotheses in our work. We used the insights to tighten the campaign mechanics when we chose to continue with the campaigns.

Tell us about your experience working on data modelling and AI?

We built models to make decisions for us. To be able to do that, we needed to understand the business requirements, the decision-making logic and process, then built and tested a model that we could trust. In one of the projects, we built a model to find out the matrix to optimise the cross-sell potential for loan products. We approached it by using logistic regression and gradient boost predictions for the same data points, so we could compare them and draw conclusions.

What do you like the most working at Standard Chartered?

I like the people and culture at Standard Chartered the most. I am very grateful that I have very supportive managers who truly care about my growth and career development. My direct manager recognises my contribution and finds every opportunity to showcase my work and increase my presence to senior leaders. He offers me training and development opportunities that I wouldn’t normally get exposure to.

“I like the challenge of uncovering myths and sharing insights, ideas and solutions that are backed by data. I find my work very rewarding– it’s satisfying when my ideas get implemented and even more so when they work out successfully.”

Pradnya Bulusu, Associate Director, Data Analytics, Wealth and Retail Banking