Polley Bhunia

Strategic public policy and BFSI professional with experience in project management, stakeholder engagement, optimizing budgets, and digital transformation. Skilled in enhancing customer relationships, fostering value-driven alliances, and leading cross-functional teams.

Work Experience

 Assistant Section Officer | Ministry of Education | New  Delhi   

  • Spearheaded a cross-functional team of 6 for end-to-end implementation of a new financial operations framework to achieve 100% compliance within 4 weeks
  • Drove financial planning and resource allocation, optimizing a budget of ₹400 crores, and implemented cost-saving strategies that resulted in a 12% reduction in operational expenses, freeing up resources for allocation to other initiatives 
  • Drove and co-ordinated cross-border strategic initiatives in an agile framework with high-level stakeholders such as UNESCO, Ministry of External Affairs, Prime Minister’s Office & Singapore Government, , successfully conducting UNESCO India Africa Hackathon and Singapore India Hackathon, involving 600+ students
  • Led a transformational initiative in collaboration with FICCI, ASSOCHAM, CII, and Higher Education Institutes for academia-industry collaboration , improving the visibility of India’s Higher institutions in QS Rankings by ~10%
  • Orchestrated a process improvement of the recruitment process of high-impact leadership roles of statutory and autonomous bodies such as All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), National Board of Accreditation (NBA), and Innovation Cell and drove efficiency in the selection process to achieve timely appointments.
  • Led a comprehensive analysis and performance review of the higher education schemes, identifying 4+ key operational inefficiencies and recommended strategic changes to senior management
  •  Led the analysis of emerging industry policies such as Green Energy initiatives, identifying skill gaps and proposed upskilling and reskilling programs affecting ~2.3 lakhs personnel
  • Played a critical role in drafting a high-level financial proposal with an outlay of 97 crores for the Ministry of Education, collaborating with senior leadership and facilitating cross-functional inputs to secure approval of the Ministry of Finance 

    

Deputy Manager | State Bank of India | West Bengal

  • Undertook comprehensive financial underwriting through comprehensive credit risk assessment of prospective retail, and business clients, extending credit of ~ Rs 100 crores 
  • Brainstormed and identified strategies to recover written-off loans, achieving a recovery of ~INR 30 lakhs in 3 months
  • Spearheaded a team of 5 associates and key stakeholders, increasing coverage of digital banking and social security initiative coverage by 25%, thereby scaling business.
  • Implemented a remodeling of repayment inflows in Self-Help Groups, reducing delinquency by 20%
  • Cultivated and strengthened key relationships with external partners, driving strategic partnerships that generated an additional INR 50 lakhs in business.               

 

Assistant Officer | State Bank of India | West Bengal

  • Coordinated and executed a major lead generation campaign, managing a team of 9 members and converting 150+ prospects in the Education Loan Campaign at IIT Kharagpur.
  • Conducted user acceptance testing of 100+ customers for the pre-approved loan disbursement process through the YONO app, identifying and reporting bugs to ensure a seamless rollout and enhanced user experience.
  • Led the onboarding campaign of customers on the Internet banking platform, increasing disbursal of pre-approved credit by 50%.
  • Achieved a 2X increase in the adoption rate of the cardless cash withdrawal feature through targeted customer education and awareness initiatives.
  • Successfully cross-sold ₹50 lakhs worth of bancassurance products, and mutual funds by aligning product offerings with customer financial goals, significantly driving fee-based income.
Accomplishments
  • Entry Scholarship 2024-25: One of 26/158 students IIM Ahmedabad PGPX 2024-25 batch entry scholarship
  • Secured 4th Position in National Level Consulting Case Competition organized by Skilled Sapiens
  • Consistent Performance Appraisal: Awarded 9+ in yearly appraisal by reporting and reviewing managers
  • Selected in the SBI PO examination: Top 0.01% (AIR 190) among 30 lakh candidates in the SBI PO 2017 examination.
  •  Summer project at New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA: One of 4 / ~150 in UG stream from Heritage Institute of Technology, who was selected for a summer project on Wireless Networks in New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA 
  • Published a paper: Published a paper on the Functional Comparison of Routing Protocols of MANET under Different Constraints in the International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering
Education

B. Tech, Electronics & Communication, Heritage Institute of Technology

Certificates
  • Lean Six Sigma Green Belt , KPMG
  • IBM Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI), Coursera  
  • AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, AWS
  •  Introduction to Strategy Consulting , BCG
  • Become a Product Manager | Learn the Skills & Get the Job, Udemy
  • Junior Associate, Indian Institute of Bankers(JAIIB)
  • Certificate of Commercial Credit , Moody’s Analytics
  • Agile Project Management, Google
  • Machine Learning with Python, IBM, Coursera

 

Co/Extra-curricular
  • Position of Responsibility : One of 16-member Profile Committee responsible for profile vetting of the PGPX batch
  • Developed a machine learning predictive model for churn prediction, achieving a 94% accuracy rate, thus creating proactive customer retention strategies.
  • Won the group poster competition at T-Nite’24 , conducted at IIMA
  • Volunteered at Child Rights and You- Carried out outreach programs, and case studies on underprivileged children in and around Kolkata 
  •  Volunteered at Robin Hood Army for food distribution drives and feminine hygiene literacy

Quick Look

  • Work Experience: 6.3 Years
  • Previous Roles

    Assistant Section Officer , Ministry of Education 

    Deputy Manager , State Bank of India

  • Function : Finance/Accounting
    General Management
    Project/Program Management
    Strategy
  • Industry/Sector: BFSI
    Government/PSUs
Work Experience

 Assistant Section Officer | Ministry of Education | New  Delhi   

  • Spearheaded a cross-functional team of 6 for end-to-end implementation of a new financial operations framework to achieve 100% compliance within 4 weeks
  • Drove financial planning and resource allocation, optimizing a budget of ₹400 crores, and implemented cost-saving strategies that resulted in a 12% reduction in operational expenses, freeing up resources for allocation to other initiatives 
  • Drove and co-ordinated cross-border strategic initiatives in an agile framework with high-level stakeholders such as UNESCO, Ministry of External Affairs, Prime Minister’s Office & Singapore Government, , successfully conducting UNESCO India Africa Hackathon and Singapore India Hackathon, involving 600+ students
  • Led a transformational initiative in collaboration with FICCI, ASSOCHAM, CII, and Higher Education Institutes for academia-industry collaboration , improving the visibility of India’s Higher institutions in QS Rankings by ~10%
  • Orchestrated a process improvement of the recruitment process of high-impact leadership roles of statutory and autonomous bodies such as All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), National Board of Accreditation (NBA), and Innovation Cell and drove efficiency in the selection process to achieve timely appointments.
  • Led a comprehensive analysis and performance review of the higher education schemes, identifying 4+ key operational inefficiencies and recommended strategic changes to senior management
  •  Led the analysis of emerging industry policies such as Green Energy initiatives, identifying skill gaps and proposed upskilling and reskilling programs affecting ~2.3 lakhs personnel
  • Played a critical role in drafting a high-level financial proposal with an outlay of 97 crores for the Ministry of Education, collaborating with senior leadership and facilitating cross-functional inputs to secure approval of the Ministry of Finance 

    

Deputy Manager | State Bank of India | West Bengal

  • Undertook comprehensive financial underwriting through comprehensive credit risk assessment of prospective retail, and business clients, extending credit of ~ Rs 100 crores 
  • Brainstormed and identified strategies to recover written-off loans, achieving a recovery of ~INR 30 lakhs in 3 months
  • Spearheaded a team of 5 associates and key stakeholders, increasing coverage of digital banking and social security initiative coverage by 25%, thereby scaling business.
  • Implemented a remodeling of repayment inflows in Self-Help Groups, reducing delinquency by 20%
  • Cultivated and strengthened key relationships with external partners, driving strategic partnerships that generated an additional INR 50 lakhs in business.               

 

Assistant Officer | State Bank of India | West Bengal

  • Coordinated and executed a major lead generation campaign, managing a team of 9 members and converting 150+ prospects in the Education Loan Campaign at IIT Kharagpur.
  • Conducted user acceptance testing of 100+ customers for the pre-approved loan disbursement process through the YONO app, identifying and reporting bugs to ensure a seamless rollout and enhanced user experience.
  • Led the onboarding campaign of customers on the Internet banking platform, increasing disbursal of pre-approved credit by 50%.
  • Achieved a 2X increase in the adoption rate of the cardless cash withdrawal feature through targeted customer education and awareness initiatives.
  • Successfully cross-sold ₹50 lakhs worth of bancassurance products, and mutual funds by aligning product offerings with customer financial goals, significantly driving fee-based income.
Accomplishments
  • Entry Scholarship 2024-25: One of 26/158 students IIM Ahmedabad PGPX 2024-25 batch entry scholarship
  • Secured 4th Position in National Level Consulting Case Competition organized by Skilled Sapiens
  • Consistent Performance Appraisal: Awarded 9+ in yearly appraisal by reporting and reviewing managers
  • Selected in the SBI PO examination: Top 0.01% (AIR 190) among 30 lakh candidates in the SBI PO 2017 examination.
  •  Summer project at New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA: One of 4 / ~150 in UG stream from Heritage Institute of Technology, who was selected for a summer project on Wireless Networks in New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA 
  • Published a paper: Published a paper on the Functional Comparison of Routing Protocols of MANET under Different Constraints in the International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering
Education

B. Tech, Electronics & Communication, Heritage Institute of Technology

Certificates
  • Lean Six Sigma Green Belt , KPMG
  • IBM Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI), Coursera  
  • AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, AWS
  •  Introduction to Strategy Consulting , BCG
  • Become a Product Manager | Learn the Skills & Get the Job, Udemy
  • Junior Associate, Indian Institute of Bankers(JAIIB)
  • Certificate of Commercial Credit , Moody’s Analytics
  • Agile Project Management, Google
  • Machine Learning with Python, IBM, Coursera

 

Co/Extra-curricular
  • Position of Responsibility : One of 16-member Profile Committee responsible for profile vetting of the PGPX batch
  • Developed a machine learning predictive model for churn prediction, achieving a 94% accuracy rate, thus creating proactive customer retention strategies.
  • Won the group poster competition at T-Nite’24 , conducted at IIMA
  • Volunteered at Child Rights and You- Carried out outreach programs, and case studies on underprivileged children in and around Kolkata 
  •  Volunteered at Robin Hood Army for food distribution drives and feminine hygiene literacy