Lehman Brothers
Founded in 1850, Lehman Brothers was the fourth-largest investment bank in the US before its collapse in 2008. With a storied history spanning 158 years, the bank was among the early entrants in India, establishing a Global Capability Center (GCC) in 2004.
Client/Employer
Lehman Brothers
Year
2005
Category
Investment Banking
Operations Technology
Type of Work
Reconciliations Technology
Product Selection
System Integration of Product
Migration
Lehman Brothers was among the earliest bulge bracket investment banks in the US to establish a Global Capability Center (GCC) in India. Located in Mumbai, the GCC housed Technology and Operations teams.
The journey began humbly from a hotel suite with the first executive hire in India. An interim office with a seating capacity of fewer than 200 was leased while the permanent office was being fitted out in a bare shell.
The Operations & Finance Technology Group (OFTG) was envisioned as the largest Technology division within the GCC. Recruitment for OFTG’s various teams commenced immediately at the interim office, reflecting the ambitious scale of operations.
A key initiative for the GCC was the establishment of a Reconciliations Center of Excellence (CoE) within Technology and Operations.
The Partner at Concinnity was among the first batch of India’s management team, tasked with setting up and leading the Reconciliations Technology teams to support Operations & Finance Technology Group (OFTG) users in the US, UK, and Japan. As the GCC expanded its Operations teams in India, the technology team’s responsibilities grew to include support for local OFTG users as well.
Arriving in Mumbai in May 2004 as the first hire for his platform team, he faced the challenges of the early days of Banking GCCs in India. At the time, the availability of technologists skilled in SmartStream products and Sybase was scarce.
To address this, he prioritized building a core team with expertise in the underlying technology stack and provided them with hands-on training on Lehman systems. Around this core team, a larger group of developers and analysts was systematically built. This train-the-trainer approach proved successful, drawing on his prior experience in establishing Centers of Excellence in niche technologies and domains with limited talent availability in India.
Once the core team was established, a Vice President from London was flown in to train them, while recruitment for the rest of the team continued.
To address the talent gap, the team experimented with unconventional hiring practices by recruiting some technologists from the manufacturing sector. These hires brought strong expertise in Sybase but lacked experience in the banking domain.
To bridge this gap, they were enrolled in a Domain Training Program custom-designed for Lehman Brothers by Dun & Bradstreet. This innovative approach not only accelerated the onboarding process but also demonstrated the team's adaptability in building a skilled workforce from diverse professional backgrounds.
Within just six months, the platform teams were fully staffed to their approved capacity and operating in a steady state, focusing on their Run Book of Work, which included code maintenance, enhancements, and bug fixes.
In addition to their core responsibilities, the Technology teams worked closely with the Operations teams, often taking the lead in training them on investigating breaks and fails, fostering collaboration and cross-functional expertise.
By 2005, the OFTG management and users in the US, UK, and Japan had developed strong confidence in the capabilities of the India GCC platform team. This trust was demonstrated when they entrusted the team with a critical initiative to replatform and retool key systems—marking a significant milestone in the GCC’s evolution and contribution.
The technology team at the GCC was entrusted with a pivotal role in the product selection and system integration for the re-platforming program.
This was a first-of-its-kind challenge for a team that had been part of the organization for just six months. Rising to the occasion, the team conducted a comprehensive evaluation of competing reconciliation products, comparing their features against key parameters, including:
Core Functionality
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Data Integration
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Matching Logic
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Exception Management
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Automation Capabilities
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Audit Trail
Scalability & Performance
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Volume Handling
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Latency
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Scalability
Customization & Flexibility
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Custom Rules
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Workflow Customizations
User Experience
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UI and Dashboards
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Reports
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Ease of Use
The team's rigorous analysis and structured approach not only demonstrated their capability but also established their credibility as trusted partners in the Bank’s strategic initiatives.
