Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Timeline
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Vaidyanatha P Ananthakrishnan

Summary

A passionate leader with a wealth of experience in guiding cross-functional teams to envision and implement groundbreaking innovations in Retail and Supply Chain. Industrial expertise spanning a broad spectrum, encompassing Digital Commerce, Planning, Merchandising, Supply Chain, Warehouse, Store, and Inventory management. Throughout my distinguished career, have consistently demonstrated a keen ability to leverage Mathematical optimization and Machine Learning, contributing significantly to optimizing business value and shaping robust product strategies. As a persuasive communicator and adept team collaborator, excel in navigating and simplifying complex situations, optimizing processes to achieve efficient outcomes. My leadership style emphasizes transformative approaches, fostering seamless integration of innovative solutions across various facets of the industry. With a focus on strategic optimization bringing in a deep understanding of the interplay between technology and business goals to ensure the success of cross-disciplinary initiatives.

Overview

19
19
years of professional experience

Work History

Senior Director - Strategic Client Solutions

o9 Solutions
08.2021 - Current
  • Strategize Demand and Supply Planning planning solutions across industry verticals
  • Demonstrated value delivery in partnership with CxO's via outcome driven, strategic large multi year initiatives and setting up green field operations
  • Create product strategy roadmap for Retail and Consumer Products' Demand Planning, Supply Planning, S&OP, Flow planning
  • As the portfolio lead lead the product life cycle management, lead, review and guide multiple retail customer implementations for allocation, replenishment and forecasting solutions
  • Created industry specific reference models for supply planning solutions and participate in Pre-Sales and Sales cycles
  • Demonstrated successful value delivery leading multimillion-dollar programs across geographies and building business cases for projects with investments of $50M+
  • Excellent understanding on building solutions by leveraging AI based forecasting engines for delivering forecast optimization capabilities
  • Expertise in defining and implementing KPIs for managing supply chain performance for managing the integrated business planning
  • Breadth of technical expertise ‐ Data Science Certified, ML in Google Certified , Certified Scrum Product Owner

Associate Director - Strategic Client Engagement

Cognizant Technology Solutions
10.2004 - 08.2021
  • Architect, Design and Develop Supply and Inventory Planning systems across multiple retailers
  • Build guided replenishment system and Custom ML forecasting for a Leading convenience stores this was one of the largest legacy systems to Cloud Migration impacting > 8K Stores
  • Implemented a Master data and Vendor Scoring Solution as part of the Supply Chain Planning for a leading retailer
  • Managed the end-to-end solution for Inbound Supply Chain Planning and Vendor Collaboration for a leading sports retailer, the redefined operational solution resulted in an average reduction of 2+ days in inventory across the supply chain for the retailer
  • Built a demand planning solution using generating a blend of Stat and ML based forecasting system for the leading sports retailer,
  • Managed and implemented the Size Optimization Engine for the leading sports and apparel retailer
  • This product reduced the overall size to inventory ratio and increased inventory accuracy by > 50 %
  • Lead the team of 200+ Team members across multiple geographies (US, Canada, and India)
  • Managed 5+ Product Owners, Solution Architects, Integration Architects
  • Excellent understanding of Scrum, Kanban, and SAFe Frameworks.

Associate Director

Cognizant Technology Solutions
01.2016 - 03.2018
  • Analytics & Inventory Optimization at various leading retailers
  • Lead the blueprinting and managed the Buy Online and Pick up at store processes for the leading sports retailer, resulting in an exponential roll out of BOPIS
  • Lead the blueprinting, Implementation, and stabilized the solver for identifying 'Out of Stock' using Data science and statistical algorithms to predict out of stock
  • This dashboard was presented to the management Board of the Retailer
  • Designed and implemented the inventory validation solution at the Retailer's Store back room, reducing inventory overstocking at stores
  • Enabling IT Service Management portfolio for incident, problem and change management.

Solution Architect

Cognizant Technology Solutions
10.2004 - 12.2015
  • Merchandising Operations & Planning at various Leading Retailers
  • Lead the blue printing, develop, integrate, and configure the Allocation, Replenishment, Retail Merchandising and Inventory solutions across multiple retailers
  • Configured Demand Forecasting application from Oracle Retail and SAS to meet the demands
  • Designed, Developed and implemented Manhattan OMS and WMS Solution for the Inventory Validation and inventory optimization solutions
  • Implemented and integrated the SAS Merchandise Finance Planning and Assortment planning
  • Lead the team of 100+ team members across geographies.

Education

Post Graduate in Artificial Intelligence -

IIT Roorkee
07.2025

Micromasters in Supply Chain -

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA
07.2025

Data Science Specialization -

Johns Hopkins University
06.2018

Postgraduate in Business Management -

Xavier's Institute of Management (XLRI) Jamshedpur
11.2009

Bachelor of Engineering -

University of Madras
05.2004

Skills

  • Demand and Supply Planning
  • Product Management
  • Data Science , Machine Learning and Optimization
  • Team Building and Motivation
  • Collaborative Leadership
  • Python,PySpark,Pyomo and PyTorch
  • Delta Lake and Graph Data Bases
  • AirFlow
  • o9 Planning , Oracle and SAS Planning

Timeline

Senior Director - Strategic Client Solutions

o9 Solutions
08.2021 - Current

Associate Director

Cognizant Technology Solutions
01.2016 - 03.2018

Associate Director - Strategic Client Engagement

Cognizant Technology Solutions
10.2004 - 08.2021

Solution Architect

Cognizant Technology Solutions
10.2004 - 12.2015

Post Graduate in Artificial Intelligence -

IIT Roorkee

Micromasters in Supply Chain -

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Data Science Specialization -

Johns Hopkins University

Postgraduate in Business Management -

Xavier's Institute of Management (XLRI) Jamshedpur

Bachelor of Engineering -

University of Madras
Vaidyanatha P Ananthakrishnan