Analytics in Indian business scenario has grabbed higher popularity, thanks to the growing importance on driving decisions based on data. Data and analytics is playing a key role in delivering business values, which is relatively new, but an exciting space to explore. At the helm of making analytics a part of various organisations are the leaders who are working tirelessly to make analytics and data driven decisions as seamless as possible.
Analytics India Magazine recognises 10 such influential leaders that are constantly bringing newer paradigms in the areas of analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, across varied domains.
The list is the work of over 2 months where we invited nominations from various leading organisations in India. This list is finalised primarily based on the criteria of the impact that the leader made to analytics ecosystem in India, in last 1 year. Also, uniform representation of various domains, industries etc is taken into account.
Here is the list of Top 10 Influencers in the Indian Analytics Industry, presented in alphabetical order.
Here’s the list from last year.
Ashutosh (Ash) Misra
Director of Advanced Analytics and Big Data, Philips Lighting
Currently based out of Philips Lighting Bangalore office in India, his current work as the Director of Advanced Analytics and Big Data revolves around machine learning algorithms, AI, intelligent BOTS and complex algorithms to find solution to enterprise problems. He and his team are involved globally on supply chain, sales and marketing, and finance related advanced analytics.
With more than 26 years of research and IT experience, he has worked with a large IT company for 17+ years and has handled several responsibilities in the insurance and financial services IT, including advanced analytics, big data, application development, project and program management, IT architecture consulting, Global Delivery Management, client partner role and P&L responsibilities. He has also been advisor to various fortune 500 customers on data and analytics consulting projects and has successfully delivered large programs, as a part of his previous role.
He holds a Doctorate in Physics from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur India.
Atul Jalan
Founder & CEO, Manthan
A highly accomplished entrepreneur, technology visionary and fervent speaker, Atul Jalan is the founder and CEO at Manthan which is his fourth venture after MicroTrack, Cybertrek and Net Kraft. It is very unlikely that you would find him not working on something new, and his secret sauce is imagination coupled with the ability to crank, accelerate and build momentum.
As the CEO of Manthan, his single objective is to keep the spirit of invention and innovation alive at Manthan. He is also the brain behind ‘Maya’, the world’s first AI-powered conversational agent for business analytics. Powered by Artificial Intelligence, Maya makes the most sophisticated analytics accessible to every user – an absolute democratisation of technology.
[pullquote align=”right”]Atul is being featured for the fourth time on this list.[/pullquote]Atul is a well known voice on technology and is sought for his views on analytics and consumerisation of technology, what is not known though, is that he also dabbles in poetry and takes a keen interest in a wide range of subjects from movies to quantum physics. Loquacious and a polymath, Atul can hold forth on the camera obscura, Spike Jonze’s Her or the latest quadcopter. AI and how it will impact consumer businesses is his current obsession, but once the tie is off, he is equally interested in how AI will impact our daily life and human institutions. If his maverick, entrepreneurial track-record is anything to go by, this could translate into something new. And the bigger and more beautiful it sounds, the more passionate he is likely to be about it.
Debashish Banerjee
Managing Director, Deloitte Analytics
Bringing more than 17 years of experience in variety of analytics, predictive modelling and data science projects, he has contributed extensively in the areas of advanced analytics, actuarial risk management, data mining and predictive modelling areas. Having started his career with GE, he has established and lead insurance analytics, pricing and reserving team for GE in India—arguably one of the first of its kind in India.
He moved to Deloitte in 2005 with the primary goal to set up the advanced analytics and modeling practice in India, where is currently oversees and provides leadership to the Deloitte Consulting’s Data Science practices which focuses on big data analytics, predictive modeling, cognitive and AI. Majority of his project offerings are in customer, marketing and HR domains.
[pullquote align=”right”]Deba is being featured for the second time on this list.[/pullquote]A voracious reader and traveler, he works closely with academicians as well as corporates and has been invited to many industry and academic conferences across India and USA. He is a nominated member of Board of Studies, ASIBAS and of PGDM Big Data Analytics program by IIT Kgp, IIMC and ISI Kolkata. He received a Golden Leadership award in 2016 from Amity University for his exemplary work in the FSI Analytics space. Apart from India, he looks after some global clients who are in based in USA, South Korea, Australia, and UK.
Deep Thomas
Chief Data & Analytics Officer, Aditya Birla Group
A reputed analytics expert, thought leader and a passionate evangelist of data science, Deep’s distinguished career spans more than two decades with a proven track record in delivering sustained and increasing profitability through business transformation leveraging information and digital capabilities, advanced analytics, novel processes, and multi-disciplinary talent.
As the Chief Data & Analytics Officer for Aditya Birla Group, Deep is at the helm of steering organisation-wide initiatives and transformation programs that leverage data and cutting-edge analytics solutions to enable business opportunities, growth and efficiencies across the enterprise. Prior to this, Deep was the founder CEO of Tata Insights and Quants, Tata Group’s Big data and Decision Science company. He has also held various key positions in US and India with MNCs like Citigroup, HSBC and American Express to steer their global agenda and data driven business transformation.
[pullquote align=”right”]Deep is being featured for the third time on this list.[/pullquote]Deep is also a well-known and frequently-heard voice on analytics and emerging technologies at leading Data science conferences both in India and abroad. He is a Computer Science graduate with an MS in Information Systems and an MBA in Marketing from Arizona State and holds numerous patents in Decision Science and Information Management.
Kaushik Mitra
Chief Data Officer and Head of Big Data & Digital Analytics, AXA Business Services (ABS)
Kaushik has the experience of working at the intersection of technology, analytics and marketing globally for around 25 years. He has assumed leadership roles across domains such as data science, AI, modelling and analytics, business intelligence and market research.
In his current role, he is responsible for driving a culture of data innovation & digital transformation in the organisation, and is involved in driving GDPR implementation in ABS. Prior to ABS, he was with Fidelity Investments in Bangalore where he was instrumental in setting up their Data Science practice. His stay in the US included similar roles in global organisations like Microsoft, Intel and IBM, and also a stint in academia.
With a Doctorate in Marketing from the US, his work has been published in international marketing and analytics conferences and journals including American Marketing Association, Academy of Marketing Science and Decision Sciences Institute. He is also a frequent speaker in Indian industry bodies like NASSCOM and various thought leadership forums.
Paritosh Anand
Vice President and Group Head – Analytics and Strategic Initiatives, Reliance Industries Limited
As analytics head of India’s largest private sector corporation and a Fortune 500 company, Paritosh brings extensive experience in setting up and delivering analytics practices for companies like GE, Deloitte and Eaton Corporation. During his last 15 years of professional career, he has worked in different domains including risk management, marketing, manufacturing and human resources functions.
In his current role, he is building a world class cross functional analytics and decision science practice for Reliance Industries Limited. He is also heading the digitisation vertical for Reliance Hydrocarbon business on its people processes as a strategic initiative to build an integrated digital platform based function. He is a statistician by academics and enjoys working on cross functional domains and platforms integrating big data analytics with technology to provide real time decision making solutions across business and functions.
Prithvijit Roy
CEO and Co-founder, BRIDGEi2i Analytics Solutions
Even before Prithvijit Roy co-founded BRIDGEi2i Analytics Solutions, he had been at the forefront of analytics development in India since the early days. He was actively involved in setting up two of the largest analytics centres in India—Genpact & Hewlett Packard, before starting what is now one of the fastest growing analytics firms in the Asia-Pacific region.
His journey for BRIDGEi2i began in 2011. Founded on the simple belief that data can help any organisation radically transform its business, BRIDGEi2i drives action for digital transformation across numerous industry verticals through a range of analytics solutions combined with AI-powered products.
[pullquote align=”right”]Jit is being featured for the third time on this list.[/pullquote]With 20+ Fortune 1000 companies filling up the rows of BRIDGEi2i’s client roster, Prithvijit and his team have rapidly scaled-up operations with a sharp focus on problem-solving and consistently delivering value. His vision for BRIDGEi2i to be at the cutting edge of advanced analytics and AI has been instrumental in driving AI/ML innovation, analytics capability development, and thought leadership in this space.
Ravi Vijayaraghavan
Vice President, Flipkart
In his current role he and his team are responsible for leveraging data, analytics and science to drive decision-making and business impact across all areas of Flipkart. Prior to joining Flipkart, Ravi was the Chief Data Scientist and Global Head of the Analytics and Data Sciences Organisation at [24]7.ai, where he invented, developed, implemented and optimised analytics and machine learning driven solutions. He has also held a variety of leadership roles at Ford Motor Company and Mu Sigma.
[pullquote align=”right”]Ravi is being featured for the third time on this list.[/pullquote]Ravi has 25+ patent filings, many refereed publications and has presented as invited/ keynote speaker at several international conferences. Ravi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology – Madras, a PhD from University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MBA from the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
Ravi currently lives in Bangalore with his wife and son.
Sandeep Mittal
Managing Director, Cartesian Consulting
Over his 17+ years in the industry, Sandeep has been a driving force in helping some of the largest organisations in India and across the globe, adopt analytics and customer centricity. He has developed an analytics practice for over 100 clients, ranging from large telecom organisations, retail brands with hundreds of stores, online businesses, financial services companies, luxury hotels and resorts, airlines, and large restaurant chains.
With Cartesian he has built an organisation that has a global presence with clients in more than 10 countries. Cartesian today has a ML/ AI practice, a Digital Analytics practice, an Innovations Lab, and is building solutions that help embed analytics seamlessly into client organisations. At Cartesian, he is responsible for making sure that organisation is continually investing in capabilities, practice building and geographic expansion while also advising clients on their analytics roadmap. A regular speaker and contributor in the field, his sessions on customer analytics, storytelling with data, and the business of analytics, are highly sought after.
[pullquote align=”right”]Sandeep is being featured for the third time on this list.[/pullquote]Right now, he is spending time with his engineering team in building out Cartesian’s first, subscription based, AI product, aimed at improving effectiveness of marketing communication.
An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, Sandeep stays connected with music – writing and recording songs in a home studio. He also runs a web comic of his cartoons, many of which are around humour in data analytics.
Srikanth Velamakanni
Co-founder, Group Chief Executive & Executive Vice-Chairman of Fractal Analytics
Fractal Analytics, one of the most respected pure play analytics companies across the globe, aspires to power every human decision in the enterprise. Srikanth and the team at Fractal Analytics help companies leverage analytics, AI & deep learning to transform the way they make strategic, tactical and operational decisions. He is responsible for overall growth of the Fractal businesses, which include the core business of providing analytics services to Fortune 500 companies, along with Fractal’s AI based product businesses – Customer Genomics & Trial Run, Cuddle.ai and Qure.ai.
He has a BS in Electrical Engineering from IIT-Delhi and an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. A former investment banker, he co-founded Fractal more than 18 years ago. Prior to Fractal, he has worked on structured debt transactions and collateralised bond obligations at ANZ Investment Bank and ICICI.
[pullquote align=”right”]Srikanth is being featured for the third time on this list.[/pullquote]Srikanth considers himself a lifelong student of mathematics, behavioural economics, neuroscience, consumer behaviour and enjoys speaking and writing on the power of Big Data to enable better decision making.
