Report outlines 5 key actions for financial services leaders

The new paper, as discussed in July at the Stratos India Forum in Mumbai under the umbrella of the Stratos Global CEO Forum and Executive Symposium, follows a first White Paper from Cambridge Judge and Bain issued in July: Power, Capital and Governance: Leadership in a Fragmented World.

This second paper, entitled Technology, Transformation and Governance: Leadership in an Emerging Order, will be discussed in London on 29 September at the 2026 Stratos EMEA Leadership Summit along with other key topics such as algorithmic systems and capital allocation, why the concept of growth has structurally changed in financial services, and the effect of sanctions and capital controls on global markets.

Evaluating leadership lessons in India’s testing ground

The first White Paper in the series “set out the argument that fragmentation, geopolitical and institutional, has made leadership quality rather than access to information the decisive competitive variable,” says Shyam Unnikrishnan, Managing Partner, Bain & Company India, in a Foreword to the new White Paper.

“This second paper does not restate that argument. It tests it against India, and specifically against the conversations that took place at the Stratos India Forum in Mumbai, where 60 of the region’s most senior financial services leaders sat with policymakers, regulators and investors to examine what fragmentation and technological acceleration actually demand of an institution once the strategy papers are closed and the operating decisions begin.”

India’s economy is full of challenging contradictions

India serves as a unique testing ground for financial leaders.

Kamiar Mohaddes, Associate Professor

Kamiar Mohaddes, Associate Professor and Executive MBA Director at Cambridge Judge Business School, notes: “India serves as a unique testing ground for financial leaders. The country is seeing record bond inflows alongside equity capital flight, modernising governance despite overlapping ownership structures, and advancing AI applications while working to resolve underlying infrastructure gaps.”

India as a laboratory for the globe

The new White Paper emphasises that none of these tensions are unique to India, but instead reflect the strains affecting the entire global financial services sector in 2026.

“India’s financial sector is now a microcosm of the global transformation underway,” the paper concludes in a section entitled India as a Laboratory for the Future. “The tensions it embodies … are instructive precisely because they are being tested at scale, in real time, under genuine pressure. As we argued in Power, Capital and Governance, the next decade will not reward those who waited for a return to stability. It will reward those who translated a fragmenting system into clear strategic commitments and then held themselves to account for delivering on them.”

We challenge financial services leaders to engage with technology and governance transformation with the conviction the moment demands.

Feryal Erhun, lead author and Professor of Operations and Technology Management

 “In this paper, we challenge financial services leaders to engage with technology and governance transformation with the conviction the moment demands,” says Feryal Erhun, lead author and Professor of Operations and Technology Management and Academic Director of the Wo+Men’s Leadership Centre at Cambridge Judge Business School. “Leaders must make choices in AI workflows, operating models and governance structures that can learn, adapt and act at speed, alongside regular, explicit reviews of the assumptions underpinning their strategic judgements on capital and technology.”

Report authors

The report’s authors are: Feryal Erhun, Professor of Operations and Technology Management and Academic Director of the Wo+Men’s Leadership Centre at Cambridge Judge; Jennifer Waller Martin, Executive Director of Executive MBA Programmes at Cambridge Judge; Nishma Gosrani OBE, Partner and Global Stratos Leader, Bain & Company, and Fellow of Cambridge Judge; Tracey Horn, Director of Corporate Communications and Marketing and Executive Director of the Wo+Men’s Leadership Centre at Cambridge Judge; and Kamiar Mohaddes, Associate Professor in Economics and Policy, Director, Global Executive MBA Programme and Deputy Director, Cambridge Executive MBA Programme at Cambridge Judge.