Lendingkart makes senior appointments to lead business, data teams

Fintech firm Lendingkart Technologies has announced the appointments of Sandeep Sonpatki as chief business officer – platform head and Dhanesh Padmanabhan as chief data scientist, said a statement issued today. In his new role, Sonpatki will help the company scale the platform business - develop offerings, drive partnerships with banks and financial institutions in India and other emerging markets and achieve revenue growth.

Padmanabhan will contribute to strengthening the data team as he will lead the team and will provide the company with robust data infrastructure to spearhead growth.

“The entrepreneurship culture is booming in the country and our vision is to empower small entrepreneurs with working capital loans. To achieve this vision we have a robust team in place who are making working capital loans available at their fingertips. We believe that with their vast experience and expertise in the industry, Sandeep and Dhanesh are best suited to lead the team toward delivering great services to our customers," said Harshvardhan Lunia, CEO and founder at Lendingkart.


Sonpatki has more than 21 years of experience across India, US and Africa. As a consultant, he has advised large banks, NBFCs and payment companies in the areas of business strategy, transformation and new business setup. In his previous stint, he was a partner with Deloitte Consulting where he helped grow the financial services practice-led complex engagements, built CXO relationships, and mentored teams.

Padmanabhan has over 18 years of experience in data sciences and engineering. Over the years he has built his expertise in the fields of analytics, machine learning and big data. In his last assignment with Genpact Digital, he managed teams that developed the AI and data platforms for various AI use cases in the pharma and BFSI domains.

He has also been associated with companies like Truecaller, [24]7.ai, Hewlett Packard and General Motors.

Since its inception, Lendingkart Group has evaluated nearly half a million applications, disbursing over 1,40,000 loans to more than 1,20,000 MSMEs in 4000+ cities and towns across all states and union territories of India.