About Us
A specialist talent partner, built on depth since 2014
EliteRecruitments began in actuarial recruitment, one of the most specialised corners of financial services, and grew, through years of focused work, into a specialist talent partner across the wider BFSI world. This is our story, what we believe, and where we are heading.
Who is EliteRecruitments?
EliteRecruitments is a specialist BFSI recruitment firm built on a simple idea: the most important hiring decisions deserve recruiters who understand the work itself. Founded in 2014 as an actuarial recruitment specialist, we have grown into a trusted talent partner across actuarial, risk, analytics, audit and financial advisory, known for depth rather than volume, honesty rather than promises, and placements that last.
Since 2014
built on actuarial depth, grown across BFSI
80%
screening ratio, candidates we submit get interviewed
85%
joining ratio, offers that become joiners
~30
specialist consultants, organised into practices
Our story
Built the hard way, in a hard market
When EliteRecruitments was founded in 2014, there was an easier path available. Most recruitment firms begin broadly, taking roles across many industries and functions and expanding as quickly as they can. Shagun Gupta chose the opposite approach. She built the firm in Delhi around a deliberately narrow focus: actuarial recruitment, one of the most technical and specialised fields in financial services. The talent pools are small, the qualifications are demanding, and there is very little room for a recruiter who does not understand the work. That difficulty was rather the point. By choosing one of the hardest niches and learning it properly, the firm set out to build something a generalist agency could not: real depth.
That depth was earned the hard way, through years of focused effort. By getting close to the work, building relationships across a small and discerning market, and consistently placing people who were genuinely right rather than merely available, the firm built a reputation one careful placement at a time. Standing in actuarial recruitment is slow to build and easy to lose, and the firm earned its place through patience, honesty and hard work rather than shortcuts.
What kept the firm moving forward was not scale. It was trust. A client who came back with another role. A candidate who recommended a colleague. A hiring manager who moved to a new organisation and brought us with them years later. As that reputation grew, so did the firm. A second office opened in Kolkata in 2019, the team grew into a group of specialists, and the firm expanded beyond actuarial into the disciplines that sit alongside it: risk, analytics, audit and financial advisory. In 2025 it registered an office in Kokomo, Indiana. What began as a specialist actuarial practice had become a specialist talent partner for the wider BFSI world, without ever losing the depth it was built on.
How we carved our niche
Specialist in more, generalist in nothing
There are many recruitment agencies. There are very few that genuinely specialise in actuarial, and fewer still that have extended that specialism across the wider BFSI world without losing its depth. That is the niche we have carved.
Actuarial was the right foundation precisely because it is so demanding. To recruit well in it, you have to understand the work: the qualifications, the technical fields, and the difference between a strong candidate and an average one. The disciplines that sit alongside actuarial, risk, analytics, audit and financial advisory, draw on the same depth and the same networks, and our clients increasingly needed all of them. So we grew into them deliberately, one specialism at a time, always holding to the same standard.
Today the firm covers a broad span of BFSI talent, but it has never become a generalist. We still specialise; we have simply specialised in more. That combination, real depth across several connected disciplines, is rare, and it is what lets us help with briefs that fall between fields and build whole capabilities rather than fill single roles.
The strategy worked
Specialist was the harder path, and it worked
When the firm started in 2014, specialism was a deliberate choice rather than the easy path. A generalist agency can operate across dozens of industries and roles. We chose instead to go deep in one of the most technically demanding talent markets in financial services. Over time, that depth became the advantage. Clients who first trusted us with actuarial hiring began asking for help with risk, analytics, audit and financial advisory, and those relationships grew from individual placements into teams, projects and capability building.
Each stage of growth was driven by client demand rather than expansion targets. We never set out to become broader for the sake of becoming bigger; we followed what our clients needed, and grew into it only when we believed we could bring the same depth and credibility. That focus is easiest to understand by what we are not. We are not a volume recruitment agency. We do not try to recruit across every industry and every role. We do not believe specialist hiring can be done well without understanding the work itself. We focus on markets where depth matters, where talent is genuinely difficult to find, and where getting a hire wrong is expensive.
Our growth map
Our journey since 2014
The firm’s growth has been steady and deliberate rather than rushed. Each step built on the last: deepening the specialism, growing the team, adding offices, and broadening into adjacent fields while holding to the same standard.
Each stage of this growth was driven by client demand rather than expansion targets. India remains our home and our deepest market, and increasingly the place where global financial services capability is built. We are active and growing in the UAE, and we work selectively in the United Kingdom and the United States. And increasingly, clients come to us not to fill a single role but to build a whole capability, which is where we are heading next.
Our mission
Our mission
We believe specialist hiring should be done by people who genuinely understand specialist work. Our mission is to help organisations build stronger teams through people who are genuinely capable, well suited to the role, and likely to stay and succeed over the long term, and to be the specialist talent partner clients trust most across actuarial, risk, analytics, audit, financial advisory and the wider BFSI world. We are not trying to become the largest recruitment firm in financial services; we are trying to become one of the most trusted. We measure success less by how many roles we fill and more by whether the people we place strengthen a team, build a capability and create long term value.
What we believe
What we believe
A few principles have guided the firm since 2014, and they still shape how we work every day.
Depth over breadth
We would rather know a few markets deeply than many superficially. Genuine subject matter knowledge is what lets us judge real capability.
Quality over volume
We would rather present three people who are genuinely right than thirty who are merely available. It is slower and harder, and it is the only approach that works.
Honesty
We are honest about what we can do, what we cannot, and whether a role or a person is genuinely the right fit. If we are not the right firm for a brief, we will say so.
Placements that last
We care about what happens after the offer. The real measure of our work is whether a person is still there and thriving years later.
Hard work and care
Every mandate gets real effort. We keep consultants focused on only a small number of roles at a time, so each is worked properly.
Looking after candidates
Candidates never pay us a fee, and we treat every one with respect, whether or not they are right for a particular role.
Our promise
What it all adds up to
When you work with us, you are dealing with a firm that genuinely understands your world, that will be honest with you, and that is judged by whether the people it places stay and succeed. Since 2014, that promise has held, and every placement is backed by a 90 day replacement guarantee. We would always rather earn a long term relationship than win a single transaction.
80%
screening rate, candidates we submit get interviewed
85%
joining rate, offers that become joiners
< 15
fees returned since 2014 for an early leaver
Founder led
Led by its founder, Shagun Gupta
When Shagun Gupta founded EliteRecruitments in 2014, she made a deliberate decision: to focus on one of the most specialised areas of financial services recruitment, actuarial. Over the years, she built EliteRecruitments from a specialist actuarial practice into a broader BFSI talent partner across risk, analytics, audit and financial advisory, while holding on to the depth that made the business successful. She remains the face of the firm and stays closely involved in strategically important searches, capability building engagements and senior leadership mandates. Her work and the firm’s have been recognised along the way, including by Forbes in its Women Power feature in 2021, by The CEO Story in 2020, and by Silicon India, which named EliteRecruitments among its 20 Most Promising BFSI Recruitment Companies in 2018.
Our team
A team of specialists, not generalists
Behind the firm is a team of around thirty specialist consultants, each working their own area of the BFSI market, organised into specialist practices across actuarial, risk, analytics, audit and financial advisory, and each practice led by an experienced head. The way the team works reflects the firm’s values: consultants carry only one or two roles at a time, so every mandate gets genuine depth and attention rather than being one of dozens on a list. Together the team covers actuarial, risk, analytics, audit, financial advisory, technology, catastrophe modelling, underwriting, claims, management consulting and executive search. You can meet the leaders of each practice on their specialist pages.
Where we are heading
Where we are heading
Financial services hiring is changing. Global capability centres are becoming centres of expertise rather than support functions. Risk, analytics, actuarial, audit and technology teams increasingly work together rather than in isolation. And organisations are building long term capabilities rather than simply filling vacancies. We believe specialist recruiters have to evolve alongside that shift.
Our ambition is not to become the largest recruitment firm in financial services. It is to become one of the most trusted specialist talent partners in the BFSI world, helping organisations build the teams and capabilities that will shape their future. That is the firm we have spent since 2014 building, and it is the firm we intend to keep becoming. See how we help build capability centres
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
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Start a conversation
Talk to us about your hiring
We have spent since 2014 building a firm that knows its markets deeply, tells the truth, and places people who stay. If you are hiring specialist talent or building a team in the BFSI world, we would like to help.
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