Kumar Kanagasabai

Kumar is a leader in McKinsey Digital and the firm’s banking functions. He works with banks, fintechs, and private equity clients on a broad range of topics, including strategy, market entry, growth and productivity, technology transformation, data and analytics, operations, and risk.

Kumar brings a global perspective to his client service and has worked with a wide range of financial institutions in North America, Europe, and Asia. He helps clients think through the intersection of business and technology, as well as navigate rising customer expectations, the rapidly changing technology landscape, and evolving regulatory needs. In particular, Kumar helps financial institutions undergo agile and technology transformation to improve performance and help them strategize for new-market entry, revenue growth, matters of risk, and M&A purposes.

Examples of Kumar’s recent client work include the following:

• developed the US market-entry strategy, product market fit, go-to-market operating model, and supporting operations for a Latin American fintech provider by identifying banking as a service-and-payments opportunity worth $250 million in annual revenue
• led a year-long agile transformation program for a North American bank spanning retail, commercial, wealth, and wholesale banking, identifying $500 million in growth opportunities and $400 million in productivity improvement
• led a technology modernization program over the course of two years for a North American bank, developing strategy for moving to cloud, platform modernization, agile at scale and talent, and identifying $1 billion in potential opportunity
• led a series of strategic assessments for a North American bank on revenue growth and risk related to data and analytics, identifying $2 billion in value capture and developing a roadmap for regulatory submission that was later approved by the regulator
• led a series of reengineering efforts across retail, commercial, finance, IT, and location optimization for a UK-based global bank, identifying $2.4 billion in opportunities globally across the top ten markets

Kumar is an avid runner and lives with his wife and two children in New York.