The Rising 2021, organised by Analytics India Magazine, concluded on a high note. The two-day virtual event–celebrating women in AI and data science–had insightful keynote addresses, panel discussions, and workshops. On the last day of the conference, AIM felicitated stalwarts in the field of AI, analytics, and machine learning as part of the Women in AI Leadership Awards.
The awardees are:
Adwitiya Sarkar, Director, Commercial Credit Risk Decision Science, American Express India Private Limited
“It is about skill and knowledge as it is about leading through uncertainty and ambiguous times,” said Adwitiya, a tenured professional with 12 years of experience in the banking and financial services industry. She is well-versed in the development and implementation of predictive models for commercial portfolios for business and regulatory use cases. Adwitiya also plays a key role in socialising ML models and bringing transparency in model interpretation.
Dr Aparna Mishra, Senior Manager Advisory Services at EY Global Delivery Services
With over 20 years of experience in managing complex AI programs for different sectors and domains, Dr Aparna has been leading AI practice in EY with a special focus on insurance, supply chain, talent and consumer sector. An alumna of IIT Kanpur, Dr Aparna has worked extensively on the trusted-AI framework and governance structure to improve customer lifecycle models
“Keeping pace with the changing needs of the industry has been a real challenge and today I am proud to be part of the industry where AI plays an integral part in solving business problems,” she said.
Minu Rachel Philip, the Associate Vice President, Analytics Consulting at Tiger Analytics
At Tiger Analytics, Minu works with a team of Data Scientists and Data Engineers to develop solutions for insurance companies. With an overall experience of 14 years in AI and analytics, Minu has designed, developed & deployed many end-to-end solutions spanning customer lifecycle management, marketing optimisation, operational excellence, and risk management.
Nidhi Pratapneni, SVP, Product, Analytics & Modelling, Public Affairs at Wells Fargo.
Nidhi heads the offshore Marketing organisation and the Product, Analytics & Modelling community at Wells Fargo India & Philippines. A St. Stephen’s College, Delhi and IIM, Calcutta alumna, Nidhi has been involved in driving the organisation’s CSR initiatives, Campus Engagement and Internal Communications.
Pavithra GK, Competency Lead: Data Science and Machine Learning at SAP Labs India
Pavithra has over 17 years of experience in various SAP applications and is currently leading Data Science Competency for the APJ region at SAP.
Pavithra is responsible for driving the development of different portfolios of business in AI/ML context. She has been instrumental in developing a disaster and relief management portal for the Government of Karnataka during the COVID19 pandemic. “AI by itself is neutral, whether it is pursued for a business purpose or a social change. What makes AI or any other tech a positive contributor is dependent on how you use it,” said Pavithra.
Dr Pratibha Moogi, the Senior Manager, Senior Technical Staff Member at IBM Research India
Dr Pratibha, a Machine Learning & AI practitioner with 20 years of experience and over 10 patents, is currently leading efforts in the Hybrid Cloud and AI domain at IBM. Prior to joining IBM, she has worked in many key R&D centres in various capacities to lead efforts in developing practical and viable AI-based features for IT products and services.
“My message to budding professionals, especially women, is to be extremely fearless and passionate to carve out a wonderful career in the tech domain,” said Pratibha.
Radha Rajappa, the Executive Chairperson at Flutura Business Solutions
With over two decades of experience in the advanced analytics space, Radha Rajappa is an entrepreneurial business leader who has successfully nurtured and scaled digital businesses. Before Flutura, she was heading Microsoft India’s Enterprise and Digital business and oversaw the development of many IPs throughout her career. Radha holds a BTech degree in Communication and Electronics and an MBA degree in Marketing and Finance from IIM Bangalore.
Ranjani Mani, the Senior Manager, Data Science and Advanced Analytics at VMWare
With more than 14 years of experience in setting up and growing Data Science teams, Product Management, Consulting and Analytics with stints across high tech companies such as Dell, Oracle and VMWare, Ranjani currently leads a 15+ member global team of data scientists across four geographies. Her key areas of focus are — Proactive Solutioning, Intelligent Search, Proactive Support and Intelligent diagnostics, Prediction models, and Customer Experience analytics.
“Tech and AI can be great democratising forces; they bring in new opportunities and create a level playing field,” said Ranjani.
Richa Agarwal, Senior Manager – Data Science (Delivery Services) at Tredence Inc.
Richa is an analytics leader with more than 11 years of industry experience and has worked in BFSI, CPG, supply chain, and other domains. Currently, she leads Tredence Inc’s customer delivery team and has been instrumental in leading data science specific initiatives. As a delivery manager, Richa has worked on a few collaborative strategies to enable clients to obtain short-term results and develop long-term sustainability strategies.
“Corporates have now realised that women can take tough assignments and build the culture of an organisation,” Richa said.
Shweta Shandilya, Program Director & Regulatory Technology Leader at IBM Data and AI Division.
With 21+ years of experience, Shweta in her current role at IBM deals with various types of frauds in the Financial/Insurance sector. She comes with a strong acumen in Data Science, and under her leadership, IBM has designed an algorithm for Federated Entity Matching. Shweta holds a Bachelor of Engineering from NIT Patna and has an MBA degree in Project Specialisation. Her product won the “Asia Risk Technology Award” in 2020.
“I feel data speaks a lot and we should be able to understand and separate noise from it to solve specific business problems,” Shweta said.
Sudheera Vanguri, the Head of Product Management for Language & Document AI product suite at Google Cloud
With a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from India and an MBA from INSEAD France, Sudheera has led and co-founded many AI products offered by Google Cloud, including the Document AI product suite, Lending DocAI, Procurement DocAI & AutoML.
Prior to this, Sudheera held engineering & product roles in Amazon Web Services, Myntra and Yahoo. She is also a guest lecturer at Stanford University’s “Designing Machine Learning” course.
Surga Thilakan, the Co-founder & CEO of Salesken
Under Surga’s leadership, Salesken has built a unique set of Machine Learning engines that provide live assistance to sales representatives. Surga is a chartered accountant with an MBA degree from IIM Ahmedabad. In 2018, Surga was named the Most Powerful Women in Business in 2018 by Business Today. Before establishing Salesken, Surga ran a skill training company, iSTAR, for ten years and was working as an investment banker in Goldman Sachs.
Vidhya Veeraraghavan, Vice President – Head of Analytics at Standard Chartered Bank.
Vidhya has 19 years experience in Banking and Information Technology Operations. She has been solving business challenges by providing data-driven solutions. Vidhya is currently leading a team of 40 members and has successfully implemented WorkForce Management Dashboard across the Units using forecasting models. Vidhya holds a Business Analytics degree from the Great Lakes Institute of Management.
Check the award ceremony here.
