Zen & Art is a group of talented and experienced technologists and business practitioners who recognize the need for a simplistic approach amidst mass disruption. We have adopted a working philosophy that embraces Zen, treats data as an art, and approaches today’s most challenging problems with an emphasis on practicality, efficiency, and progress.
Founder, Chief Executive Officer
Sandesh Shetty founded Zen & Art in 2003 and has served numerous roles within the company, including development of the business model and plan, raising funds, recruiting the management team, setting up the infrastructure of the company, overseeing new business development, building out the product development methodology and team, managing sales and marketing, and overall administration of day-to-day operations for the company. Through Sandesh’s leadership, Zen & Art has doubled its revenue each year since inception and has grown to become a $40 mil revenue company. With 30+ years of experience in business and IT, Sandesh brings to the team both vision and financial management expertise.
President, Chief Data Officer
Eliud Polanco has over 15 years of experience in data analytics, business, and technology strategy for financial institutions. Eliud has served as Global Head of Analytics and Big Data Strategy at major global financial institutions, including Citigroup, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, and Scotiabank with responsibilities covering IT strategy and architecture, software partner management, and the build-out of Data Science teams and analytics organizations. His analyses experience ranges from revenue and growth-oriented analytics (Retail and Wholesale prospecting) to risk management and cost control (fraud intelligence, cybersecurity, financial stress test modeling, and risk aggregation reporting). Through these experiences, he has developed, tested, and fine-tuned his unique approach to building real-world, innovative solutions to complex data problems, yielding realizable and tangible business benefits.
Executive Managing Director
New York City Office
Ranjit Radhakrishnan has 20+ years of experience in technology, project management and business development within the financial services industry. He specializes in leading large-scale, end-to-end, transformational projects in major financial institutions. As a consultant, Ranjit built an IT transformation advisory and architecture team, developing a multi-year transformation roadmap for Merrill Lynch. An innovative thinker, Ranjit uses his industry experience to help clients successfully implement emerging and disruptive technologies, generate efficiencies and increase their ROIs.
Executive Vice President
For more than 35 years, John Pezzullo has led high-tech organizations in a diverse set of industries. He has set up and directed high-volume transaction environments and back-office operations across multiple verticals. A senior international executive seasoned both in servicing Fortune 500 and privately held corporations, with expertise in sales, marketing, finance, operations, and general management. John has significant experience in integrations, delivering operational and financial turnarounds, the transformation of stagnant businesses, business development and corporate EBITDA growth. He is a leader with an intrinsic talent for conceptualizing and communicating vision, empowering management, and fostering team consensus and cohesion.
Senior Business Development Lead
Charles (Charlie) DeFelice is a Technology Executive with 35+ years of experience within the Financial Services industry. Prior to joining Zen & Art, Charlie spent 26 years at JP Morgan Chase where he was involved in 17+ mergers and acquisitions and led teams that created and implemented a wholesale customer profitability program, re-engineered the global wholesale credit management environment, and managed the planning, design and implementation for the Global Financial Architecture. Since, Charlie has held senior sales, business development, and delivery positions at Citigroup, Freddie Mac, Salesforce.com, among others. In these roles, Charlie has significantly grown the book of business for financial services and public sector while forging strategic partnerships with leading technology providers.
Managing Director
Charlotte Office
For 20+ years, Ajit Nair has Ajit has led global, multi-functional teams in major technology initiatives within leading financial services companies in India, the UK, and across the United States. Prior to Zen & Art, Ajit served as a Client Partner at a global consulting firm, led program management for a Technology Infrastructure Domain Engineering team within Bank of America, and spent 13 years at a leading IT services firm. There, he drove the modernization of a business-critical legacy mainframe, optimized the capacity for a high-frequency trading system, and oversaw numerous global reconciliation initiatives. Ajit specializes in building client relationships by understanding their precise needs and working with them in strategizing, solutioning, and overseeing the end-to-end delivery of projects.
Managing Director
Bangalore Office
Vivek Chopra has 12+ years of experience serving as a Client Partner and overseeing talent acquisition and resource management for global IT services firms. Vivek’s leadership and organizational prowess have enabled him to launch global recruitment models, spearhead end-to-end program management for leading Financial Services clients, and design and drive numerous successful bench optimization and training/reskilling initiatives.