Santosh Ramakrishnan

Aug 2020 — Jul 2026 · Most recent

Ametra — Co-founder & CMO

Founded to bring scientific, rules-based, fully transparent quant investing — until then reserved for high-ticket investors — to the mass market. The bet worked: the platform scaled to nearly ₹85Cr in AUM in just 8 months.

The regulatory shock

A SEBI shift killed the category overnight

A regulatory change ended the direct-to-consumer investment advisory category overnight, for Ametra and every peer in it. Along with the co-founders, took the hard calls to rewire the entire business into a PMS-first firm — building a genuinely novel distributorship model across multiple cities from scratch. With the new structure stabilised, exited recently, retaining equity.

CURRENT — PROPRIETARY IP

The h-Principle

The framework didn't start as a framework. It started as a discomfort.

Like most companies, we at Ametra were optimizing to bring AI into our workflows for an edge — faster, cheaper, especially to recoup impact from the regulatory shock above. And it worked, a little. But it left one question unanswered: what happens once every other PMS has acquired the same capability? How do we keep outperforming, once the tools stop being the advantage?

That question is what became the h-Principle.

>17%

the conversion gain that first validated it, in a way built to compound.

See the framework in full →

2012 — 2015 · First founding attempt

Gumbo Mediaworks — Founder, Managing Partner

Left network life to build at the cusp of creative arts and technology — a studio designed to produce immersive brand experiences years before "creative technology" was a category. Assembled a genuinely rare team: UX/UI designers, developers, and technologists working alongside creatives. The mistake was pace — pushed harder and faster than the market, and our investors, were ready for, and it tipped into an existential crisis with the people who had backed the venture.

The lesson that carried forward

What Gumbo taught, Ametra survived on

The discipline that mistake taught — sequencing ambition to what a market and its backers can actually absorb, and the operator's instinct to actually run a P&L rather than just advise one — is precisely what shaped Ametra's survival through its own regulatory shock a decade later.

2003 — 2020 · The foundation

Twelve years in the room — JWT, Leo Burnett, BBH India, MullenLowe Lintas

Built from the ground up, literally: door-to-door consumer research, house calls, focus group moderation, reams of market reports — before graduating to writing the strategic briefs those reports made possible, and finally closing the loop by moving into creative roles that turned those briefs into work that actually moved brands. Google, Vaseline, McDonald's, Heinz, HDFC Life, Levi's, Kingfisher, Tetley, Cleartrip, and Tata Coffee among the brands built along the way.

1998 — 2003 · Where it started

B.Sc (Hons.) Physics → MBA, Marketing

A physics degree before an MBA is a specific kind of training — evidence, causality, testable models of how things actually behave. Everything since has been that same rigour, pointed at the least predictable system there is: human decision-making. The proprietary IP of h-Principle isn't a departure from that training. It's a return to it.

// Key experience highlights

Group Creative Director

MullenLowe Lintas · 2015–2020

Built a new branch's creative unit from the ground up. Helped Quikr and Cleartrip grow when both were still little more than startups, alongside institutions like Tata Tea and Tetley.

Brand Partner, Creative

BBH India · 2010–2012

First deep global exposure — working closely with international offices across New York, London, and Singapore on massive, multi-continent projects for brands such as Unilever and Google.

Sr. Writer → Copy Supervisor

Leo Burnett · 2007–2009

First experience turning strategic craft into effective creative execution — running growth campaigns for McDonald's, Heinz, and HDFC Life.

Brand Strategist → Creative

JWT & Brand Firm · 2003–2006

Strategic roots, where discipline was learnt first before craft — pushing brands including Levi's, Kingfisher, ACC, and Marico.