In a recent turn of events, it is seen that many analytics leaders are jumping jobs. While most prefer to start their own consultancy, join a start-up or climb up the ladder with a bigger brand; this change, from one big brand to another for the same post, came as a surprise and Analytics India decided to dig into the story and speak to the man himself.
Dr. N.R.S Raghavan, the Sr. Vice President & Head of Data Science at Reliance Industries Ltd has now joined Rolta as the Sr. Vice President & Head of Data Science and Big Data Analytics. He is admired as one amongst the Ten Most Influential Analytics Leaders in India in 2014.
Reliance is a leading brand, but then Rolta is an influential one as well! So, what catalysed the change? When asked to comment on his decision to join Rolta; Dr. Raghavan said, “The current wave of data science as service will soon give way to commoditized data science within various sectors. Given my interest in creating IP in this area, I decided for the change to work in an IP oriented organisation.”
Well reasoned, as Rolta is one of the leading provider of innovative IT solutions for many vertical segments which include Federal and State Government, Defense and Homeland Security, Utilities, Process, Power, Financial Services, Manufacturing, Retail and Healthcare.
With a lustrous career of more than 19 years, he has added many feathers to his cap. From an award winning PhD in Computer science and M. Tech in Operations research from IISc, Bangalore to setting up the ‘Centre of Excellence for Big Data Analytics’ at Reliance Industries, he has always stimulated the development of innovative solutions using data science and quantitative modeling.
This Centre of Excellence at Reliance, that he has set up, is competent in delivering in depth business insights into Oil & Gas, Petrochemical, Telecom & Life Sciences businesses. Dr. Raghavan was not only responsible for strategizing and realizing the value proposition for Data Science and Data Governance within the group companies but also for building and mentoring a world class team of data scientists / business analysts to deliver high performance.
At Rolta, he is overseeing the product development related to advanced analytics and packaging them as a core value add for Rolta’s Enterprise BI solution called OneView. The focus areas include Oil and Gas (Upstream, Midstream and Downstream), PetroChemicals, Chemicals, Utilities and BFSI. Rolta has strategic partnerships with giants such as SAP, Oracle and Hitachi to leverage their technology stacks in their solutions. Their global team consists of experts in data munging, data science, data mining, data architects and data analysis using the latest technologies in the big data space.
To give a brief overview of his career, he started as a faculty of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore where he set up collaborative partnerships with leading industrial houses such as Semiconductor Research Corporation, Intel, General Motors, SAP Labs, Hindustan Unilever, etc as well as with government agencies to like Department of Science and Technology, Department of Information Technology fund his lab on decision sciences. Even after his career transition to corporate, he not only established but also handled many green field data science labs and initiated collaborative partnerships with International Universities for them. Moreover, he has been the mentor of R&D at Dell India, Analytic Science Manager with Fair Isaac, Lab Group Manager for Customer driven advanced vehicle development group at General Motors R&D, Head of the Data Science with Citibank Global Decision Management group and lastly the Senior Vice President & Head of Data Science at Reliance Industries Ltd.
Thus, covering diverse domains like telecom, oil & gas, finance, automotive, personal computer, semiconductor manufacturing and retail. Analytics India wishes Dr. N. R. S. Raghavan the very best in yet another glorious journey he has commenced on!
