The data industry is fast changing with new technologies, methodologies, and platforms casting their profound influence upon the business ecosystem. Top Data Science influencers in India and abroad advise organizations to adopt a futuristic approach. Data Science evangelists think beyond day-to-day data analysis or optimization.
Data science leaders in India come up with innovative thoughts that would democratize technology and use it for analyzing business situations well in advance and provide a tailor-made solution before the problem is born. Their ideas go beyond the enterprise process and create something revolutionary. That’s when they become influencers; they inspire people and technology for a better future.
Here we have highlighted the contribution of some of the top Data Science influencers in India. Some of them have enriched us with their innovative thought and approach, while others have made path-breaking discoveries in Data Science.
Top Data Science Influencers in India
We have chosen the 10 best brains for Data Science, based on innovation, impact factor, leadership, analytics evangelism. More than an impressive academia, a brilliant career graph, publications, these Data Science influencers are also good communicators who can read thoughts to translate them into tangible data products and tools. All of these data scientists are shining luminaries, who have created an undeniably significant impression in the business ecosystem with their remarkable data insights, thought leadership, and publications.
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Joy Mustafi:
Joy Mustafi is the Principal Applied Scientist at Microsoft – Artificial Intelligence and Research, Data Science and Machine Learning. With more than 15 years of experience in corporate, research and academic world, Mustafi is one of the top Data Science influencers in India. He started his career with IBM India (2006) as Analytics Consultant in the Business Analytics and Optimization service area. In 2014 he moved to Global Technology Services – IT Operations Analytics as Data Scientist and contributed as Subject Matter Expertise in IBM SPSS Statistics, IBM SPSS Modeler (Text Analytics) and IBM Content Analytics.
Joy has been a visiting faculty member in several academic organizations. Endowed with a good number of patents, research publications on Applied Statistics and Computational Linguistics, he is one of the best-known Data Science leaders in India.
Joy did his graduation in Statistics (2000) from Ramakrishna Mission Residential College, Narendrapur (Calcutta University) and post-graduation in Computer Application from Regional Computer Center (RCC), Kolkata. He received the Junior Research Fellowship award in Computer and Communication Sciences from Indian Statistical Institute in 2004.
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Satnam Singh:
An established business entrepreneur, Satnam Singh is one of the well-known Data Science leaders in India. In his decade-long relationship with Samsung Research India Bangalore, he had been actively involved in building data products from concept to production, played an important in implementing several analytics features in the smartphone. Before Samsung, he worked as a senior researcher in General Motors Research.
There he was part of the core research team in conceptualizing and developing data products from scratch for several verticals in GM.
Satnam holds a Ph.D. degree in ECE from the University of Connecticut and a Masters in ECE from the University of Wyoming. He completed BE from IIT Roorkee. These apart, Satnam has 7 granted patents, 13 patent applications and 32 journals and conference publications to his credit. Satnam is also a senior IEEE member and appears regularly in various Big Data and Data Science conferences, as a speaker and panelist to discuss the various trends and techniques in Data Science.
Satnam is an avid sports lover. He loves to go for cycling and rock climbing when he is not researching. He is a regular participant in several adventure sports events.
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Anshu Sharma Raja:
Anshu Sharma Raja is SVP and Head of Technology Infrastructure at Vodafone India Limited. She is responsible for IT Infrastructure innovation and expansion for Vodafone in India. Prior to this, Anshu held the position of a Senior Director and also a part of the India leadership team at AIG in India. In that role, she laid the contributed significantly to the growth of the Data Science function for AIG in India.
With almost 20 years of experience in the financial-tech industry, Anshu stands among the top Data Science influencers in India. Being a hardcore ‘data person’, Anshu enjoys designing in-memory algorithms for large financial transaction calculations, that gave her a taste of modern day Data Science.
She started her career programming in C++ and has since then played key roles in managing large programs and product development teams distributed across India and abroad for global financial firms and top-tier investment banks. Before AIG, Anshu was the regional lead at Goldman Sachs in Bangalore, responsible for the market data function and several large infrastructure programs. She has also worked at Misys and Thomson Reuters.
Anshu holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Computer Science from Bangalore University. She has also undertaken the Executive General Management Program at Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore. In her free time, Anshu loves to mentor young IT professionals and takes part in career webinars encouraging women to return to the technical career, after a break.
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Atul Jalan:
Atul Jalan is currently the CEO of Manthan. A self-proclaimed data entrepreneur, Jalan is widely known for his imagination and oodles of energy. As the operating CEO of Manthan, he is always experimenting with new ideas. He played a very vital role in making Manthan as one of the leading players in analytics business solutions for consumer industries worldwide. Today Manthan is listed among Fortune 500 companies in India.
MicroTrack, Cybertrek and Net Kraft are the other successful entrepreneurial ventures of Atul Jalan. He is a regular speaker at several Data Science events in India for his views on analytics and the consumerization of technology. He also has several publications. A voracious reader, Atul takes a keen interest in a wide range of subjects from movies to quantum physics. He loves to go for skiing, with his son, when he is out of office.
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Deep Thomas:
Deep Thomas currently the CEO of Tata Insights and Quants, is a reputed Data Analytics evangelist. For more than two decades, he has been actively contributing to delivering sustained increasing profitability through business transformation leveraging Information and Digital capabilities, Advanced analytics, Novel processes, and Multi-Disciplinary Talent.
Prior to Tata Insights and Quants, Deep has held pivotal positions in Citigroup, HSBC, and American Express to steer Global agenda and leverage the power of data to its fullest potential. He believes the time is ripe for Indian organizations to unleash business value through the application of advanced analytics. Under his aegis, Tata iQ has grown substantially is one of the front-runners in Data Science innovation in India. A well-known thought leader, Deep is one of the top Data Science influencers in India.
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Ravi Vijayaraghavan:
Ravi Vijayaraghavan, currently the VP and Head-Analytics at FlipKart.com, is actively involved in building capabilities to help drive all aspects of the business and product decisions through data and analytics. Prior to Flipkart, Ravi served as the Chief Data Scientist and Global Head (Analytics and Data Sciences) at [24]/7 Inc. He played a pivotal in creating sophisticated predictive solutions to drive a disruptive change in customer service and customer experience.
Prior to [24]/7, Ravi held key roles at Ford Motor Company. His contributions in the applications of computing and analytics to the design and optimization of business and engineering systems earned him the Henry Ford Technology Award (the highest technical recognition at Ford). Ravi served as the Vice president of Mu Sigma Inc., a Chicago/Bangalore based pure-play analytical services company. Recognized as a thought leader, Ravi is known as one of the top Data Science influencers in India.
Ravi has more than 20 patent filings and has been a keynote speaker at several international conferences. Ravi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MBA from the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
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Nilesh Karnik:
Nilesh Karnik is the Chief Data Scientist at Aureus. He is responsible for the development of algorithms and mathematical models that help in leveraging advanced analytics solutions. Before Aureus, Nilesh worked with Morgan Stanley Advantage Services where he held decisive roles in analytics and technology teams. Nilesh has also worked for Tata Infotech, GE Capital International Services, and MindTree Consulting in the past.
Nilesh holds a Doctorate in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California. His Ph.D. dissertation had brought to light newer thoughts and practices in the theory of Type-2 Fuzzy Logic Systems and is still serves as an important reference for Data Science researchers.
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Debashish Banerjee:
Debashish Banerjee, the Practice Leader for Actuarial, Rewards, and Analytics at Deloitte Consulting Hyderabad is one of the most well-known Data Science influencers in India. In his role, Banerjee’s focus areas are Actuarial, Insurance Analytics, Predictive Modeling, Workforce Analytics, Data Science, Machine Learning, Recommendation Engine amongst other analytical, actuarial, predictive and Data Science algorithms.
With over 17 years of experience as a data scientist, Debashish has made a significant contribution to advanced analytics, risk management, data mining, and predictive modeling areas. Prior to Deloitte, he worked for GE and was instrumental in establishing and leading the insurance analytics, pricing and reserving team for GE in India. Debashish was awarded the most prestigious “Summit Award” by GE for his innovative practices in insurance analytics.
Banerjee has been an honored panelist and speaker in industry and academic conferences across India and USA. He is also closely associated with IIM, Ahmedabad and Lucknow, his alma mater at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, CAS and SOA, USA, IAI, and NASSCOM, India. He is a nominated member of the Board of Studies, ASIBAS and was awarded the Golden Leadership award by Amity University in 2017. He also heads the Analytics Advisory board of the Institute of Actuaries in India.
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Pradeep Menon:
Pradeep Menon, one of the leading data scientists in India, is the operating COE of GE. He leads the ‘Data and Analytics’ function across all the Digital Technology Hubs of GE globally. Menon also handles work across all the GE BUs (Aviation, Power, Healthcare, Oil, Transportation, Renewables, Digital, Lighting & Current) in the areas of Data Engineering, Data Platforms, Data Architecture, Machine learning, Artificial intelligence and Predix analytics. Prior to GE, Menon led the Global Analytics Org for the Maersk Group, where he was responsible for strategy, transformation and delivery of Analytics for the various BUs in the conglomerate across geographies.
In his brief stint at Dell, he dealt with various aspects of Product Marketing, Pricing, Competitive Intelligence & Product Strategy. The team supported all of Dell’s global product brands across Enterprise products, End user computing products, and Services products. Menon also led the enterprise risk and controls audit analytics group for Dell. Prior to that Pradeep was a Principal Consultant with Honeywell Aviation’s internal consulting division, managing IT programs and products for the unit.
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Sanjay Srivastava:
Sanjay Srivastava currently serves as the Analytics leader at American Express. He heads the analytics and reporting teams supporting Merchant business across geographies. With over 18 years of diverse experience in Analytics domain and rich cross-industry perspective, Srivastava is one of the top Data Science leaders in India.
Recognized as a thought leader, Sanjay believes in the democratization of Data Science and adoption of analytics and has led organization-wide initiatives to this effect. He appears as a panelist and speaker in several academic and industry forums.
Prior to American Express, Sanjay was involved in setting up Dell’s Marketing and Sales Analytics Centre of Excellence and was responsible for making it one of the largest amongst captive setups in India. He played a pivotal role in building advance predictive, digital and customer-centric analytical capabilities.
Sanjay held key roles in strategy and analytics positions with Jet Airways. He contributed significantly to building network optimization and fleet management systems to leverage the power of analytics. Sanjay is a founding class alumnus of the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad and holds a B- Tech in Mechanical engineering from IIT- Roorkee. Sanjay enjoys running on the tracks when he is not planning or strategizing.
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