Ex‑Amazon, Cisco, Intel, and Jupiter leader to scale engineering that powers 10× faster claims, 70% AI‑led query resolution, and India’s fastest 1‑day OPD payouts
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, August 2025 – Plum, India’s fastest-growing healthcare platform serving 6,000+ companies and 6 lakh+ users, has appointed Sankar as Head of Engineering. With over 25 years of engineering leadership experience across diverse domains and company scales—from early-stage startups to global enterprises like Amazon, Cisco, and Intel—Sankar will lead Plum‘s engineering organization as the company scales its comprehensive healthcare intelligence platform.
Sankar joins Plum at a pivotal moment in the company’s evolution from insurance technology to India’s most comprehensive healthcare platform. Under his leadership, Plum‘s engineering team will continue building the technical infrastructure needed to serve the company’s ambitious goal of reaching 10 million users by 2030. This appointment follows the recent hiring of Prayat Shah as Head of Healthcare, who is leading Plum’s fast-growing healthcare vertical.
“India’s insurance and healthcare sectors are experiencing a profound transformation, and Plum is distinctively placed to spearhead this change,” said Sankar. Having built scalable multi-product platforms, I understand the opportunity when you get the engineering foundation right. Plum already supports 6,000+ companies and enjoys strong user affection—our focus now is on scaling and evolving the platform to offer comprehensive healthcare products to more than 10+ million users.
Sankar contributed to engineering and product initiatives at industry giants including Amazon, Cisco, and Intel, and recently at Jupiter, giving him a unique perspective on building scalable systems across different stages of company growth.
Saurabh Arora, Co-founder & CTO of Plum, said, “Sankar brings exactly the combination of startup agility and enterprise-scale expertise we need. His experience across startups and global enterprises like Amazon and Intel, combined with his proven ability to build high-performing engineering teams, makes him the perfect leader to guide our technical evolution as we scale across three product verticals.”
Under Sankar‘s leadership, Plum‘s engineering team will focus on advancing the company’s AI-led approach to personalized healthcare, building secure, enterprise-grade systems for large corporations, and scaling the platform to handle exponential user growth while maintaining rigorous security and compliance standards. He will also deepen integrations with insurance and healthcare providers while driving innovation on instant claims approvals and reimbursements that make the user experience seamless and efficient.
Plum’s engineering team has already delivered key breakthroughs transforming user experience and operational efficiency:
- The company’s API-led claims automation now processes 95% of reimbursement claims across major insurance partners including ICICI Lombard, Niva Bupa, Bajaj Allianz, and Digit, reducing settlement timeframes by 10X from over 30 days to less than 3 days.
- The implementation of AI-driven support systems has resulted in a 30% reduction in customer service tickets, with bot-led resolutions increasing twofold through specialized AI assistants. This automation has improved first-contact resolution rates from 30% to 70%, enabling employees to resolve queries independently.
- Through the Plum Health Wallet, the platform now offers India’s fastest OPD claims experience, allowing employees to file claims in under one minute with payouts processed within a single working day—a significant advancement over industry standards. The intelligent claims routing system leverages AI to automatically process low-risk claims, bypassing manual review and reducing settlement times by 2-3 days while automating 40% of all claims, with plans to reach 95% automation in upcoming quarters.
Since its inception, Plum has grown from a single insurance product to a comprehensive multi-product platform spanning three key verticals: employee benefits, healthcare services, and personal insurance. Today, their platform handles over 100,000 claims every year, a telehealth consultation every three minutes, while turning data from 200-plus biomarkers into clear, AI-powered health guidance.
Abhishek Poddar, Co-Founder & CEO of Plum, said, “Sankar joins us to lead our engineering team as we scale across three product verticals and expand our healthcare team fivefold. His appointment reinforces our commitment to building world-class engineering capabilities as we work toward our vision of making insurance and healthcare accessible to every Indian employee.”
Plum recently announced a ₹200 crore (USD 25 million) investment to expand its healthcare vertical, underlining its mission to deliver accessible, preventive, and personalised healthcare at scale. As part of this shift, Plum will expand its healthcare team fivefold to meet the needs of its growing multi-product platform and ambitious goal of reaching 10 million lives by 2030.
About Plum
Plum is India’s leading insur-tech platform offering employee wellness solutions and business insurance solutions to 6,000+ corporations. Founded in 2019, the company is on a mission to accelerate the adoption of health insurance in India by making employee health insurance accessible, affordable, and usable for employees. It is re-imagining the health insurance stack and accelerating the penetration of health insurance in India to 100%. Plum is backed by marquee investors, including Tiger Global and Peak XV Partners.
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