Skip to content
Santhosh Mallikeswaran

Mandates

Experience

Three years took me from pulling performance and risk reports for senior CPMs to owning key EM accounts of my own. Along the way I rebuilt the reporting engine with code, carried the DDQ and RFP pipeline for our EM products, brought ESG screening into the review cycle, and trained the desk on the tools I had learned.

The desk

Goldman Sachs · Fundamental Equity Client Portfolio Management

Where he sat

Fundamental Equity Client Portfolio Management, part of the Asset & Wealth Management division. The team is the bridge between portfolio managers and the market — representing our public equity strategies to the investors who allocate to them.

Who the desk served

Public equity mandates for institutional investors and platform (third-party) distributors globally, across pooled vehicles and client-specific separate accounts. Remit: performance, risk and attribution reporting, client due diligence, RFPs and ongoing investor dialogue.

Vehicles & mandates

  • Multi-billion-dollar investment mandates
  • Pooled vehicles — UCITS, SICAV and CIT
  • Client-based separate accounts

Product range & coverage

  • Umbrella EM offering plus country strategies incl. China and India
  • My coverage: EM equity across the suite and India & Asia separate accounts

Roles

Three-plus years on the desk, analyst to associate.

Jan 2024 — Jul 2025

Bengaluru, India

Associate

Goldman Sachs

Fundamental Equity — Client Portfolio Management, Asset & Wealth Management

  • Drafted quarterly & monthly commentary for 15-20 EM Equity institutions (multi-billion AUM).
  • Produced 25+ customized pitch books & marketing decks annually.
  • Completed 30 annual RFP & DDQ submissions.
  • Resolved 6–8 monthly client queries on ESG integration, risk exposure & performance drivers.
  • Ran key accounts of my own — macro decks with PMs, client meetings and follow-ups.
  • Led RFPs and ESG reporting for EM products.

Apr 2022 — Dec 2023

Bengaluru, India

Analyst

Goldman Sachs

Fundamental Equity — Client Portfolio Management, Asset & Wealth Management

  • Automated recurring reporting with Python & VBA — 25 man hours saved monthly, 40 at quarter ends.
  • Delivered timely, accurate institutional reports with portfolio managers & compliance teams.
  • Completed 30 annual RFP & DDQ submissions with structured inputs on portfolios & ESG frameworks.
  • Supported senior CPMs with performance, risk (Axioma) and attribution reporting.
  • Grew into owning recurring DDQs and the monthly and quarterly reporting cycle.

The four pillars

The work he owned end to end, in his own framing.

  1. Reporting, Risk & Attribution

    Performance reports across the EM suite — umbrella and country strategies — so senior CPMs had numbers they could rely on. Risk in Axioma plus sector, country and stock attribution. Owned monthly and quarterly Positioning & Holdings, GIPS and client management reporting, and built macro narrative pre-meeting decks around the PMs' view.

  2. Client Due Diligence & Engagement

    Recurring DDQs for existing mandates — performance, compliance against the Investment Mandate Agreement, holdings and team changes. RFP responses for prospective clients across EM coverage. Sat in client meetings for my own accounts and closed out follow-ups, and tested holdings against ESG criteria in MSCI ESG Manager.

  3. Automation & Technical Edge

    Automated the recurring output — Positioning & Holdings, attribution and periodical review decks — with Python and VBA, saving 25 man hours a month and 40 at quarter ends, formally recognised. Built FactSet, Bloomberg and Jupyter interfaces surfacing holdings, sector mix, NAV, unsettled trades and trade rationales.

  4. Separate Accounts & Team Capability

    Owned India and Asia equity mandates end to end, from reporting through client dialogue. Extended automation into external tools including FactSet add-ins feeding the reporting cycle, and trained new joiners on FactSet, Bloomberg, MSCI ESG Manager, RAD, VBA and Copilot — building tech competence beyond any one person.

Tenure
3+ years · Analyst to Associate
Mandates supported
Multi-billion AUM · pooled & separate accounts
Automation
25 man hours saved monthly · 40 at quarter end
Coverage at exit
Four pillars · India & Asia separate accounts
The through-line
Accuracy at scale, delivered on time

Answering what clients actually ask — on compliance, holdings and performance — taught me to fix the process behind the answer, not just the answer itself.

Before the desk

Quinstinct Advisory · investment advisory & fund research

Feb 2021 — Nov 2021 · Chennai, India

Management Trainee · Quinstinct Advisory

An investment advisory in Chennai building quantitative models for wealth management. Worked directly under the CEO as mentor, across the full advisory workflow. Cleared the NISM XA certification required to work in investment advisory.

Fund Performance Analysis

Evaluated seven funds shortlisted for outperforming the Nifty 50 over two to three years — testing whether the outperformance came from active share or from weightage differences against the index, and whether it was likely to repeat consistently.

Automation & Modelling

Turned the firm's quantitative risk-profiling model into a shareable client report, then automated its generation with VBA and Excel macros. Rebuilt the retirement planning model from first principles to audit its logic end to end.

Benchmark & Index Research

Analysed the growth drivers of the Nifty 50 TRI across FY18-19, FY19-20 and FY20-21, giving the desk a clear read on what moved the benchmark before attributing fund performance against it.

Client Communication

Wrote the June client newsletter on whether equity markets were overvalued and where further upside remained — shared with clients and published on the company LinkedIn page — followed by a July edition on why SIPs matter for long-term investors.

  • 20+ assessment parameters → Developed Risk Profile Questionnaire framework to evaluate investor risk tolerance and suitability.
  • 10+ client cases → Built Retirement Goal Planner model estimating SIP contributions across varying return and inflation scenarios.
  • Designed Performance Attribution template comparing portfolio returns against benchmark indices.
  • 8-10 forward indicators → Prepared macro commentary supporting client communication and portfolio strategy discussions.
  • Integrated historical market return data into Python-supported fund screening models.

Earlier work

Operations and coordination, before the move into finance.

Apr 2019 — Apr 2020

Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

Executive Administration

Maersk Training

  • 100% course delivery success — managed operations, control, and coordinated all elements of course planning.
  • Primary liaison for candidates and regulatory bodies in oil and gas.
  • Maintained full HSEQ audit approvals and accreditation standards.

Tools

Systems used daily, not once.

  • Financial modeling
  • MS Office 365
  • FactSet and Bloomberg proficiency
  • Project management
  • Problem solving
  • Cross-functional teamwork
  • Request for proposals
  • Due diligence questionnaire
  • Python
  • VBA & Excel macros
  • Axioma (risk)
  • MSCI ESG Manager
  • Jupyter
  • RAD
  • Microsoft Copilot