Malay Kumar Poddar joined General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC), Mumbai, as a generalist officer in 1986. After initial training in all trades of General Insurance, he was inducted into Crop Insurance Department of GIC. He worked in GIC Crop Insurance Department for almost 18 years and served in six different states of India as State In-charge.

After formation of Agriculture Insurance Company of India (AICI) in 2002-03, he joined the newly formed Company in April 2004. He served there for almost 15 years and became General Manager in 2014. In 2018, he moved on to National Insurance Company Limited at Kolkata as General Manager. At NIC, he oversaw Agriculture, Aviation, Liability and Miscellaneous lines of business and led the digital marketing initiative of the Company.  He joined back AICI on 18^th December 2019 as Chairman-cum-Managing Director.   

During his career in Agriculture Insurance, he was deeply involved in development and implementation of various Crop Insurance Schemes and products introduced by Government of India, GIC and AICI. He has been closely associated with International Research Organizations, World Bank Group and Global Reinsurers working in the field of climate change and risk management in agriculture. He has served as a Member of Task Force on NITI Aayog's (National Institute for Transforming India) Crop Insurance Committee.

He has Agricultural Economics as academic background and a Fellow of Insurance Institute of India.