Castine Conversations: Bomsi Billimoria Interview 

February 11, 2026.  Please note that this is an automated transcript of the above mentioned podcast; errors may exist. If you have any questions, please contact Castine. 

Tom Smith: Welcome to this episode of Castine Conversations. My name is Tom Smith and I’m the Executive Vice President at Castine. Castine is the leader in providing the full continuum of research and commission management solutions worldwide. In these conversations, we meet the business leaders in commission management and research as they’re managed, reported on, and paid for. 

Today I speak with Bomsi Billimoria, founder and CEO of EvoXvantage. Bomsi has spent over 25 years inside large global financial firms driving operational discipline and cost transformation at scale before founding EvoXvantage. Bomsi was a global transformation executive who personally led the implementation of Castine’s Commissioner Compensation Solution and Commander CSA management solution at a major financial institution—a project that changed the way commissions and compliance were managed. 

Today, we’ll explore Bomsi’s journey, the stories behind the global system rollouts, and why EvoXvantage promises no fluff, just results. I hope you enjoy the conversation.  

Bomsi, thanks for joining me today. 

Bomsi Billimoria: Thank you, Tom, for inviting me. 

Tom Smith: I was thinking about our history together. I think you became a client of mine about five years ago. We’ve worked together and we’ve known each other for quite a while. But why don’t you tell me a little bit about your background—where did you grow up? Where did you go to university? Things like that. 

Bomsi Billimoria: Sure. So I grew up in Bombay, India, and I went to Bombay University. I’m actually a graduate in Zoology. When I came to the U.S., when I was 20 years old, right after actually giving my final exam, I got on a plane, came to the U.S., and started working in financial services. My first job was as a telex operator at Bank of India, New York branch. And from there, I kind of learned all about back office operations and grew in my career path over time. I had a lot of great mentors and great managers. I was very lucky. I joined GE where I got into process transformation, process improvement, and program management. And then recently I was at SocGen and then at Cantor. 

Tom Smith: Just going back to when you moved here—moved to the U.S. from India—was that because of a job or was it your family, or did you just decide you wanted to move? 

Bomsi Billimoria: No, my brother, who was a dentist from India who had migrated first, basically, after I—while I was in school, he kept on telling me that I should come here too and join him. I just—the original reason to come here was just to visit him and just, you know, see how things go. But then my mother decided to also migrate, so she migrated as well. And then, you know, we applied—I applied for a green card so that I could come here and potentially stay for a longer period of time. I always had in my mindset that, you know, I would eventually go back to India, but I’ve been here 40 years. 

Tom Smith: It didn’t happen. And I was looking at your LinkedIn page and you did a program at Columbia University. 

Bomsi Billimoria: Yes, yes. I actually joined their executive leadership program while I was at SocGen. It was very interesting for me because I always wanted to learn much more about leadership skills. And at that time I think I had some time between different projects that I was working on. And SocGen actually sponsored the program for me. So I decided to actually complete that program. It was very interesting. I met some amazing individuals while working on that program. 

Tom Smith: So you started talking about some of the large firms that you worked for, large global companies. What kind of roles did you start out with and grow into as you evolved over time? 

Bomsi Billimoria: I would say the first 10 to 15 years were much more operations management. So mainly back office operations—commercial lending, foreign exchange, money market, derivatives product processing, securities processing. And that’s basically where I was for the first 10 to 15 years. And then after I joined GE, I got into implementing different solutions, different systems. I implemented a CMS globally for GE. I also implemented their general ledger system globally. So I worked on that in kind of a quasi operations as well as an implementation role for the different systems and improving their overall processes. I also worked on creating a global operating model for them and moved a lot of positions to different low-cost places like India. And then after that I came to SocGen and did something similar. I was in a controls role initially when I joined SocGen, but then I moved over to much more of a program management, project management, transformation role. And then same thing at Cantor—head of Transformation, Global Transformation. 

Tom Smith: Was that something that existed already or did you kind of initiate it at SocGen first? 

Bomsi Billimoria: At SocGen, there was a Lean Six Sigma team. They were not really truly a program management transformation office. So I created the transformation office at SocGen. It was not there before, in the New York office. And then over time, basically, similar units were created also globally. And I actually participated in setting up those units as well as managing some of them over time. And then at Cantor, there was no real transformation office. I created it from scratch. 

Tom Smith: So then, while you were there, is when we first met—when you implemented Castine and you became a client of mine. 

Bomsi Billimoria: Yes. Yes. Absolutely. 

Tom Smith: So you implemented it over time—implemented two products: the CSA product first, and then the compensation product on top of that. So tell me about the problem you were trying to solve. What was the reason? 

Bomsi Billimoria: So for Commander, which is your CSA product, the problem to solve was that everything was manual in nature. We didn’t really have a tool. We were working off spreadsheets and Word documents, and the communication between the clients and ourselves was not really robust. Things were falling through the cracks. So when we talked, Tom, you know, we discussed how we wanted to improve the end-to-end workflow. And we chose Commander because we felt that Commander actually helped us solve the problems that we had. So it connected very well with us and what we were trying to do. And once Commander was implemented, I think Commissioner was just the next thing for us to work on together. There also, we were just trying to revise the whole process. We redesigned it—we had to really rethink everything from a commission management perspective, because again, we were spreadsheet-based, manual in nature, and we needed to change that. I always believed in that, right? I don’t like to work with spreadsheets and manual processes. Wherever possible—it’s just my transformative DNA—I wanted to improve processes. So I think Commissioner and Commander both fit very well within our organization. 

Tom Smith: So tell me about the approach. When you’re doing a large-scale transformation and you’re implementing systems like this, what’s your approach? How do you make sure that they’re successful? 

Bomsi Billimoria: I think there are five key things that I always follow. Number one is data. Make sure that your data is well mapped, that there’s no duplication, that it’s very, very clean because, as you know, garbage in, garbage out. And, of course, data is extremely important to me. The second thing, the design, making sure that the product is built the way it’s supposed to be built—that there is proper testing and that it’s meeting expectations, fulfilling the requirements. Third, which is extremely important, is training. Making sure that, you know, people are trained properly and that they know exactly what they need to do. Fourth is user acceptance, making sure that whoever will be using the tool is involved in the project from day one—not the day that you’re rolling it out or you’re transitioning to the users. Involve them, make sure that they know exactly not only what they do, but also what the input provider provides as well as what the output receiver receives. I think that has been my mantra for many years. I really want to involve everybody from an end-to-end perspective. We used to call it at GE, from a wing-to-wing perspective, based on the aircraft engines. But that’s what’s important. And then the last thing, and which is I would say the most important thing in my personal opinion, is that we never really treated Castine or any other system as just a system, right? We need to make sure that it’s a governance tool by which we make sure that people are actually using it as a tool that is helping them be not only improving their processes, but also being more compliant with what they need to do on a day-to-day basis. I hope that makes sense to you. 

Tom Smith: No, no, it absolutely does. Absolutely. So with your background in transformation, and I’ve heard you describe the results of that overall project as transformational, can you just describe some of the impacts or give some examples of some of the impacts to the business once that was up and running? 

Bomsi Billimoria: Sure. The first thing, as I said, was making sure that the data is improved, the outputs are improved. The business really had much more transparency on exactly what was going on. The reporting that we generated out of Castine was very beneficial for the business heads to really see exactly what is outstanding, what needs to get paid or received from our clients, as well as on the commission management side to make sure that the commissions were actually being calculated correctly, which in the past was not the case, and being paid out in a timely fashion. And then each person who was getting the commission payout was getting their individual reports so they could review, challenge if there was anything to be challenged. Most of the times it really wasn’t very much of a challenge because it was very clear. But that was important for us from a business perspective. And as you know, I sat on the business side, so I was hired by the business leads to do this, to perform this role at Cantor. So I think it was important for us to make sure that we were satisfied with the outputs of the tool. And I could tell you that we were. 

Tom Smith: Great. So what advice would you give any firm that’s wrestling with those same or similar issues? 

Bomsi Billimoria: Just follow the five points that we followed. I mean, it’s not really that complicated, to be honest. I mean, any system—for me, data is important. If you don’t clean your data, if you don’t manage and map your data properly, you always end up blaming the tool. And you know, many people do that. Many people have—I have a lot of experience where people basically tell me, ‘Hey, the tool is not working.’ I don’t think it’s ever the tool. It’s always the data that we put into the tool, the effort that we put in ahead of time to make sure that everything is mapped correctly, the testing that we do, the training that we do. And as I said, treating a tool not as a tool, but as a governance system—something that is constantly monitored and constantly looked at. And just because you implemented something a year ago doesn’t mean that it’s working perfectly. You always have to keep on looking at your processes again and again, revising them, changing them. And you know, the business changes. People change. Your training needs to be up to date. And never blame the tool. It’s always—I always say always blame the people, not the tool. 

Tom Smith: Yeah, it’s a poor mechanic that blames his tools. 

Bomsi Billimoria: Exactly. Yeah. So anyways, whenever somebody comes to tell me that something is not working, I’m like, okay, let’s find out why it’s not working. Let’s not just blame the tool. Right? So I think it’s important, you know, that has been my way of working all the time. I never really blame technology. I always blame, you know, ourselves. We need to take responsibility for what we implement. 

Tom Smith: Sure, sure. So then let’s fast forward a little bit. So you left a top-tier executive role at your last firm to start EvoXvantage. So why did you do that? 

Bomsi Billimoria: I’ve been on the side of buying—as a buyer of services—for many, many, many years, and I worked with some amazing people, amazing companies, as a buyer as well as an implementer of solutions. And I felt like I needed to make a change where I am actually taking all the experience that I have and use it to help not just one organization, but multiple organizations at the same time. I felt like it was time for me to take on this new challenge and try to do something different than what I’ve done before. So here I am. I started this company in the middle of last year, and I’m trying to grow it and trying to make sure that I am basically being a little bit different than normal consulting firms where they come in and they present to you what the problem is and what the potential solution is. And my opinion is that one thing that always ends up not being done is actual execution. And what I want to do is not create beautiful pitch decks for my clients. I want to execute for my clients. So that’s something that I’m looking forward to doing continuously in this new role. 

Tom Smith: Sure. So then tell me about your process or your approach. You know, what do you do first when you go in? How does that all work? 

Bomsi Billimoria: Yeah, so most of the time, you know, it starts with a simple conversation with a CFO or a CEO or a CIO or a head of procurement of a company. And basically talking about what their challenges are. It’s kind of funny because when you listen to people, you actually learn a lot, instead of talking. So I kind of try to listen to what their issues are, what their challenges are, and then I’m honest about what I can do, if anything, to help them. And there are various ways of me working with them. I can work on a fixed price basis or I can work on a pay-as-you-go hourly basis, or I can actually work on a revenue sharing basis. Like for example, if I save them X dollars, then I can charge them a percentage of the savings as compensation for my time and effort. But most important for me is to really understand the problem that they have and if I can really help them. You know, I don’t want to waste my time. I don’t want to waste their time. If I feel like I cannot help them, I basically tell them, ‘Sorry, but I cannot help you.’ But I get excited when I hear somebody’s issue and I’m like, okay, I’ve done this before. I could definitely help you. And that’s what makes me excited. And then everything else figures itself out, to be honest. 

Tom Smith: Yeah, and I bet, you know, your clients appreciate that as well. They can bring you into other things where you’re going to draw the line and just say, “you know what, that’s a little bit outside of my wheelhouse.” 

Bomsi Billimoria: Yes. But there’s another problem, and I’ve already addressed it before. I have some ideas. 

Bomsi Billimoria: Yeah, and I also have some partnerships, right? So I can bring in some partners who have done that kind of work. Like, for example, if I don’t know something, I can always lean on my partnerships that I have in place already and I can go back to the client and say, look, I have a certain partner who can help you. And I have examples of that. If you want to talk about those, I’d be happy to talk about those. 

Tom Smith: Sure, sure. First, what does a typical client look like for you? Like, do you have a sweet spot or what’s a good candidate for EvoXvantage? 

Bomsi Billimoria: Anybody who I can help, you know, either to save money or to improve the processes that they have in place. For me, I mean, I don’t think that there is a client that’s not ideal as long as I can help them. But I always find myself really wanting to work with people who are committed to actually making change happen. So if I do feel that there is not an appetite for change, I usually shy away from those kinds of relationships, to be honest, because I would be basically wasting their time. And I don’t want to do that. So if there’s a strong commitment, that potentially is an ideal client for me because when I know that I can really have the sponsorship and be able to execute for them very quickly and make change happen very quickly for them, I think that gets me excited. So, you know, I don’t say that I won’t work with X, Y, Z if they don’t have enough capacity as far as money goes. But I really think that, you know, commitment-wise, I look for that. If they’re committed, then ideally they would be my ideal client. 

Tom Smith: And then the engagement model that you use. I think you touched on it a little bit, but can you expand on that? 

Bomsi Billimoria: Yeah, sure. I mean, you know, it’s very flexible. As I said before, it all depends on the type of work I’m doing for them. Sometimes, you know, if it’s a short project, fixed fee makes sense, or time and material makes sense. If it’s a short project, if it’s a long-term project, I want to make sure it’s value-based. So, you know, as I said, I share in the savings that I generate. So it all depends on the client’s appetite as far as how they want to work with me. But I’m very flexible. I’m not set saying, okay, it has to be a fixed fee or it has to be time and material. For me, the most exciting thing is what problem I’m really solving for them. You know, if I believe that I’m solving a problem, you know, I know I’ll get paid the right amount of money for my time that I will dedicate or my team will dedicate. 

Tom Smith: So we’ve talked about a couple of different areas you focus on, but tell me about what you’re doing with energy savings. 

Bomsi Billimoria: Oh yes. That’s where it has just dropped into my lap. I have a friend of mine, actually, who introduced me to that, and I’ve partnered with them. So basically what we have is a solution that actually helps get rid of the dirty energy that comes into your building. And basically what it does is it’s like a little box that we implement that actually manages the energy coming in. So you’re not paying for the energy that you do not utilize. And basically it generates an immediate ROI for you within months once you implement it. And it works mainly for, you know, large commercial properties like data centers, hospitals, commercial real estate. We even actually have it implemented in one of the prisons. So it basically does help save money by saving the amount of electricity you’re consuming. You know, there is something called the actual utilization, basically, that drops because of putting in this machine, putting in this technology between how the electric power comes into your building and how it gets utilized. So it’s something very exciting that I’ve been working with. 

Tom Smith: Do you have like targeted results or percentage savings or amounts, or does it just vary depending on the implementation or the setup? 

Bomsi Billimoria: So we kind of guarantee an ROI, so sometimes between 10 and 20%. And the way that we do that is we assess, you know, the bills before last year or two. We do an analysis of all of the bills, electricity bills, and then we implement the solution. And we see how much we can save and we really actually monitor it for like a week or two and try to figure out exactly how much money we can save. And then we can go back to the client and say, look, we will be able to save you 10%, 15%, up to 20%. And we underwrite that. We just say, okay, if we can’t save that and we can’t generate the return on your investment, we will basically take the machine out and we will give you a refund. So that’s something that’s, you know, exciting for any client, right? Like they know that there is a guaranteed ROI, so they’re kind of happy to work in that kind of arrangement. 

Tom Smith: Yeah, I would bet. It just completely takes their risk out of the equation. 

Bomsi Billimoria: Yeah. And this is why I partnered with them because I felt like, you know, this would be a no-brainer for a large, you know, commercial real estate operation or even a large hospital or a larger hotel chain or a data center. You know, electricity is expensive and it’s getting more expensive every day. 

Tom Smith: So you built, you’ve built an advisory board and an ecosystem of partners. How did you go about—are there people that you worked with in the past or that you know, or new people you came across? How did you go about that? 

Bomsi Billimoria: So these are all the people that I’ve—these are some of them are my past managers. Some of them are past vendors that I work with. These are all the people I respect and I’ve learned from. So I basically reached out to them and then said, look, I’m starting this new company. Would you be willing to put your name as one of the advisory board members? And, you know, not only just put your name, but also help me when I have questions or challenges or, you know, because I’ve never managed my own business before. This is the first time I’m doing it. And these people have done it again and again. Some of them have actually generated, created companies and sold the companies and been very successful. So I reached out to them and, you know, they were happy to be on the part of the advisory board. And they’re actually super helpful. I can, whenever I have any challenges, I reach out to them. They’re super helpful in helping me and advising me what to do. 

Tom Smith: Very good. So I’m going to take it back to the beginning, to a personal note, just something that you mentioned to me one time recently when we were talking. Because you had me over for dinner. Me and my wife were over at your house for dinner, and we met your lovely wife and she’s an amazing cook. And you just had some comments about eating out in restaurants versus in your home. I just thought it was really interesting. Could you share some of that with me? 

Bomsi Billimoria: Sure. Absolutely. You know, there are two amazing women in my life. First was my mother and she recently passed away, and she taught me a lot of stuff. And now I have an amazing wife who continuously teaches me every single day. So one of the things that I’ve learned from both of them is basically service for others. And now what we want to do is—my mom used to always say, you know, it’s important for people to feel your love through food and, you know, when you really care about somebody, you know, what do you do? You cook for them and you make them feel at home and you share your blessings. And this is something my wife also believes in and actually I believe in. So I think whenever I meet somebody, whether it’s a person who I’ve known for many years, or if I’ve met somebody brand new, most of the times, you know, people say, oh, let’s go out to dinner, and we can chat. And I always say, you know what? Why go out in an atmosphere where somebody else is cooking for you and you’re sitting there and you’re being rushed and you don’t have time to really openly speak and talk in this noisy environment? Come to my house, you know, we’ll have a home-cooked meal. We’ll talk, we’ll grow our relationship and our friendship, and that’s what we like to do. And I think that’s something—it’s a blessing that we love to share. And you know, my wife is a good cook. You know, I think she’s amazing, but I think, you know, I— 

Tom Smith: I can attest to that too.  

Bomsi Billimoria: So we make a simple meal, but we make it exciting. We actually take a lot of time and effort to not only prepare it, but also explain what we made and how we made it. And I think it makes for interesting conversation and it makes people feel more comfortable. 

Tom Smith: And that’s exactly how that dinner came about, because we were trying to find a restaurant and the time that worked and travel times and everything. It worked out great; thank you for that. 

Bomsi Billimoria: Oh, thank you. And I also believe in helping people in many ways. So like, I feel like it’s important that, you know, all of the blessings that I’ve received, all of the mentorship I’ve gotten and opportunities I’ve gotten in my life—I like to give back on that too. So if I meet somebody who is out of work or is looking for a new role, if I can introduce them, I can help them in any way. You know, I can hire them myself. This is something I want to do and I want to continue helping people that way as well. 

Tom Smith: Great. So any final messages for people watching or listening that, you know, things that maybe we haven’t talked about or just to summarize? 

Bomsi Billimoria: I would say that, you know, a lot of people talk about what is happening right now in organizations around AI and its use, and there are some people who say AI is bad for you. Some people say AI is excellent for you. I think one thing that I would say is, you know, let’s be careful. Let’s make sure we’re always using AI the smart way, using it for our benefit. You know, like Ronald Reagan used to say, trust but verify. So I think it’s just important for us to really look at AI as a helping tool, a tool that helps you, but not to blindly trust it. So I think that’s important there, and I follow that in my business and I use AI, but I’m also somebody who actually checks everything before I actually publish anything. I use AI to help me with data analysis and not really to make my own decisions. I think for that you have the brain that you can use. So I think that was important. You know, working with people closely, listening, helping them transform organizationally—you know, I think we have to make sure that change is part of our DNA. I think, you know, if we don’t do that, I think we won’t be successful and continue to be successful. And I think listening to your clients and understanding their problems and being honest about how you can help them or not help them, I think that’s what’s important, for me at least. And, you know, I’m looking to have an amazing 2026. I’m hoping that I am in a situation where I’m refusing work or postponing work. And I’m looking forward to having an amazing 2026. And I wish you the same. 

Tom Smith: I’m sure you will. Well, thank you very much. This has been a great conversation. I appreciate you taking the time and best of luck. I’m sure we’ll be talking. 

Bomsi Billimoria: Yes, absolutely. And if any of my clients are looking to implement a commission management system, you know who I’m going to call. 

Tom Smith:  I appreciate that as well. Great. 

Bomsi Billimoria: All right, thank you, Tom. Thanks for your time. Appreciate it.  

Tom Smith: I’d like to thank Bomsi for joining me today. For more information on EvoXvantage, please visit evoxvantage.com. For more information on Castine and our full continuum of solutions for research, commission management, compensation, and other services, please visit CastineLLC.com.