Proximity to client GCCs offers strategic advantage: Broadridge India’s Santhanam Govindraj

Broadridge Financial Solutions, a US-based fintech company, has steadily evolved its India operations into a critical hub for its global business. Broadridge India provides investor communications and capital markets technology, offering Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based solutions for trading and post-trade processes.

“We enable everything from order management to trade settlement through our platform,” Santhanam Govindraj, Chief Technology Officer, Capital Markets, Wealth & Investment Management, Broadridge India, told TechCircle in an interview. “It’s a complete front-to-back suite that powers the operations of global banks and capital market players.”

Broadridge globally employs over 14,000 people, with India accounting for nearly 5,500. The India unit supports the firm’s two core businesses: investor communication solutions, where it plays a key role in corporate governance, and capital markets, wealth, and investment management—the area led by Govindraj and his 2,000-strong team.

These teams span product management, product agility, business management, architecture, software development, testing, client onboarding, implementation, and support. “We are a product company, so our client services also involve implementing and supporting the product suite for global clients,” Govindraj said.

Broadridge’s client roster includes 20 key clients like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo. Many of whom have sizable GCCs in India. The nature of the capital markets business creates a strategic advantage: while trading typically occurs during US hours, post-trade operations often take place during India’s daytime.

“This alignment allows us to work more closely with the actual users of our solutions in India,” Govindraj noted. “Over the past 2–3 years, we’ve actively collaborated with the client Global Capability Centers (GCC) in India to improve product feedback loops and client responsiveness.”

This creates a “microcosm” of the global financial services ecosystem within India, bringing together technology vendors like Broadridge and client operations in one geography, which helps faster iteration and innovation.

Early mover in India’s fintech talent pool

Broadridge’s India story dates back to July 1999, well before the term GCC became industry parlance, noted Govindraj. Originally part of the brokerage services division of Automatic Data Processing (ADP), the India team was set up to leverage the country’s emerging talent pool. When ADP spun off this division in 2007, Broadridge was born.

“In the early years, India was largely seen as a cost center handling less complex, back-office tasks,” the leader recalls. “But over the last decade, we’ve shifted from cost arbitrage to value creation.”

In the last five years, especially, Broadridge has pushed to position India not as an offshore extension, but as a full-fledged peer to locations like New York. “Whether it's Hyderabad, Bengaluru, or New Jersey, the mindset now is that each location is equally capable of owning and delivering end-to-end complexity.”

India has played a pivotal role in incubating several of Broadridge’s marquee innovations. One such example is the Distributed Ledger Repo. It is a blockchain-based solution for global repo transactions designed to improve how repurchase agreements, or repos, are processed, tracked, and settled.

“This was one of the first enterprise-grade blockchain products in the financial services industry, and India was instrumental in building it in a bootstrapped manner alongside global teams,” says the leader.

More recently, the India team was part of the foundational build-out of BroadGPT and OpsGPT, two Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered tools from the fintech firm.

When it comes to an approach towards AI, Govindraj believes in the 4Ps framework—Product, Platform, Productivity, and Protection.

It entails embedding AI into Broadridge’s SaaS offerings, particularly in data-intensive processes like post-trade; building internal tools that make employees more productive and help them innovate better; using tools like ChatGPT to enhance employee effectiveness across defined personas; and setting up guardrails to ensure data security and compliance in all AI deployments.

Campus hiring and talent grooming

Technology roles make up roughly 60% of Broadridge’s India headcount. The company places a strong emphasis on strategic campus hiring and long-term talent development.

“We have deep partnerships with top universities and invest heavily in grooming young talent,” the leader said. “We also hire experienced professionals who can bring in differentiated capabilities as we scale.”

To be sure, Broadridge India had earlier this year announced that it would be increasing its headcount by over 25% in three years, to grow over 6,800 members.