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India is often described in sweeping, seductive shorthand: a billion-plus consumers, a vast middle class, digital leapfrogging and an inevitable march towards premiumisation. But as Rama Bijapurkar argues in this episode of Money Majlis, that picture is not merely incomplete; it can lead businesses, banks and investors towards profoundly wrong decisions.

Rama, one of India’s most influential thinkers on consumer behaviour and strategy, joins Suvo to unpack the central idea of her latest book, Lilliput Land: India’s mega-consumption story is built not on one uniform market, but on millions of small consumers and suppliers, each making modest but consequential choices, increasingly connected through powerful digital rails. The lesson is simple but demanding: there is no single “Indian consumer”. There are many Indias, many income realities, many ambitions and many versions of value.

The conversation moves beyond familiar clichés about India’s middle class, rural markets and digital payments. Rama explains why companies must learn to see the country at a far more granular level: the affluent customer in a small town, the aspirational household that must choose between a new refrigerator and a family holiday, the woman whose income may not translate into financial autonomy, and the small merchant whose QR code has made participation in the digital economy possible.

For bankers and fintech leaders, this is an especially rich conversation. Rama explores the economics of serving customers with small balances, small transactions and limited financial resilience; the role of public-sector banks, NBFCs and fintechs in financial inclusion; and the tension between instant digital credit and responsible lending. She also discusses why trust still matters in banking, why a beautiful app is not the same as a meaningful customer relationship, and why regulation can be an essential safeguard rather than merely a brake on innovation.

The episode also looks at artificial intelligence through a customer lens. Rama warns against mistaking dashboards for understanding, or using AI simply to fish more efficiently in an existing pond. The real task for boards and management teams, she argues, is to remain humble, observant and relentlessly focused on customer-perceived value. Technology may change the ritual, but it does not change the religion of customer-centricity.

This is a masterclass in looking beyond averages, questioning boardroom assumptions and recognising that demand often leads while supply lags. For anyone trying to build, invest, lend or lead in India, and in the emerging markets that increasingly resemble it, Rama Bijapurkar offers a sharper and more human way to see the opportunity.

Produced by : Poddster

Giving partner : Goodworld

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This episode of Money Majlis dives into how banks and regulators can finally break out of “pilot purgatory” and turn AI from hype into hard P&L impact, with one of the world’s most influential applied‑AI leaders, Alexander Sukharevsky, CEO of QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey.

Drawing on his global work with financial institutions, sovereigns and regulators, Alexander explains why 88 percent of organisations say they use AI yet only a tiny fraction see more than 20 percent EBITDA uplift, and what it really takes to move that needle.

Across our conversation, Alexander lays out a concrete playbook for banks: focus on a few high‑value domains instead of scattered use cases, reinvent customer journeys and legacy processes end‑to‑end, and build the “human stack” of leaders and bankers who can speak the language of AI without needing to be data scientists. We unpack lessons from Rewired 2.0, his updated McKinsey playbook on how leading firms win with technology, and go inside case studies like DBS to show how a traditional bank can become a data‑driven, AI‑ready organisation without derailing business‑as‑usual performance.

Alexander also offers a candid assessment of where the GCC and UAE are genuinely ahead of the curve: ambition, speed, bold AI investment, and where execution still lags, from fragmented pilots to under‑invested data and architecture foundations. He demystifies “agentic AI”, imagines organisations where human and virtual team‑members work side by side, and explains why CEOs must personally become chief product and transformation officers, spending time in the “machine room” instead of watching AI from the boardroom.

Along the way, Alexander tackles regulation and digital trust, the future of work, and what great bankers will look like in 2030, before sharing his own leadership journey from building two businesses from scratch to scaling QuantumBlack into a multi‑thousand‑person AI practice born in Formula 1 and now reshaping banking worldwide.

Produced by : Poddster

Giving partner : Goodworld

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What does it take to build an iconic technology company before the technology ecosystem required to support it even exists? In this compelling episode of Money Majlis, Suvo Sarkar speaks with Dhiraj Mukherjee, co-founder of Shazam, investor, speaker and lifelong student of technological disruption.

Long before smartphones, app stores and streaming, Shazam began with a deceptively simple human question: “What is this song?” Dhiraj recounts how a group of ambitious entrepreneurs built a way to identify music from a few seconds of audio over a basic mobile-phone line, then spent nearly two decades navigating the far harder challenge of finding a sustainable business model. It is a story of conviction, reinvention and resilience through the dot-com crash, the global financial crisis and the upheaval of the music industry.

Dhiraj reflects on the tension at the heart of every enduring venture: holding a fixed vision while maintaining a flexible mindset. He shares why Shazam did not change its fundamental purpose, but repeatedly reinvented the way it created value: from paid SMS messages to music partnerships, advertising and streaming. His lesson for founders and leaders is refreshingly direct: stay relevant, keep learning and live to fight another day.

The conversation then turns to AI, where Dhiraj brings the perspective of an early OpenAI investor and a practitioner who believes technology must be experienced, not merely discussed. He explains why failed pilots should not automatically be seen as failure, why enterprises must move beyond simply layering AI onto outdated workflows, and why the greatest opportunities in banking may lie in the “big, boring problems” of compliance, risk, credit and operational efficiency.

For boards and senior leaders, this episode offers a powerful argument for curiosity, experimentation and adaptability. Dhiraj explores the importance of sandboxes and guardrails in regulated industries, the benefits of reverse mentorship across generations, and the need to build organisations around skills and learning velocity rather than static roles. He also makes the case that AI should elevate human capability, not absolve institutions of their responsibility to help people reskill and contribute at a higher level.

From the founding story of Shazam to the future of autonomous financial agents, quantum computing and AI-enabled work, this is a wide-ranging conversation about navigating uncertainty with optimism, humility and disciplined action. Dhiraj’s governing principle is clear: in an age when knowledge is abundant and change is relentless, adaptability is the capability that matters most.

Produced by : Poddster

Giving partner : Goodworld

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