The most influential people in data and AI

The most influential
people in data and AI

Headline Partner

Kiran Kanetkar, Vice President, Data and Analytics, Pendulum Therapeutics

Describe your career to date

I am an accomplished technology executive leader passionate about solving business problems that deliver business value. I have subject matter expertise in delivering business strategy that is powered by data and analytics (DNA). With over 25 years of technology experience and hands-on approach to solving problems, I ensure technical debt is retired using modern agile technology architecture that leverages modern cloud and microservices based IT landscape. Currently I work as vice president of application, data and analytics at Pendulum Therapeutics. I have held leadership positions at other renowned companies like Petco and Warner Bros. Entertainment. To collaborate with other thought leaders in industry, I speak regularly at different conferences, participate in panel discussions, write editorials at magazines and publish blogs through LinkedIn and other social media. I have completed a bachelor of mechanical engineering from VJTI, Mumbai, post graduate diploma in management from NITIE, Mumbai and an executive MBA from Ross School of Business at University of Michigan.

What stage has your organization reached on its data maturity journey?

In terms of maturity, Pendulum is using diagnostic and descriptive analytics extensively. We have started using predictive analytics, AI and ML in the last one year and are looking forward to using prescriptive analytics in the second half of this year.

Tell us about the data and analytics resources you are responsible for

Currently I manage a team of ten people for data and analytics. This includes data engineers, dashboard developers and data scientists. In terms of organization, they are part of the IT team. We do have few other self-service analytics people that are in marketing and finance. Prior to Pendulum, I worked at Petco where I managed a team of 60 people that were spread across onshore and offshore. This included similar resources such as data engineers, report/dashboard developers, data quality and governance resources and data scientists. At Petco, we also had 30 plus self-service data analysts that were part of different business teams.

What challenges do you see for data in the year ahead that will have an impact on your organization and on the industry as a whole?

Self-service analytics is becoming more popular to scale analytics as one centralized team cannot handle all business needs. However, with self-service, the main challenge is governance and communicating with business teams, which data they can use and how to calculate metrics and interpret insights. The rise of generative AI will also pose a challenge in how to incorporate that into analytics business processes.

Have you set out a vision for data? If so, what is it aiming for and does it embrace the whole organization or just the data function?

The vision for data is to deliver business value using data driven decision making. To realize this vision, we have a roadmap that delivers analytics maturity in terms of capabilities. These incremental capabilities are delivered every quarter.

Have you been able to fix the data foundations of your organization, particularly with regard to data quality?

The data quality is constantly evolving. As new data sources are brought online, we need to account for data quality and ensure overall service levels are maintained. We do that through automated data validation scripts that perform tests and ensure data quality. If the tests fail, alerts are generated to take corrective action ASAP to maintain the desired level of data quality.

Kiran Kanetkar
has been included in:

100 Brands 2023 (USA)

The most influential people in data and AI

The most influential people in data and AI

The most influential
people in data and AI

Kiran Kanetkar, Vice President, Data and Analytics, Pendulum Therapeutics

You’re viewing a limited preview.

DataIQ Clients unlock the full profile - plus access to the connections and peer insights that drive real-world results.