Sarnath Kannan

AI Researcher

United Arab Emirates25 yrs 8 mos experience

Highly StableAI ML Practitioner

Key Highlights

15+ years in Data Science and AI leadership.
Expert in building decision intelligence systems.
Proven track record in financial risk management.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a Fintech and SaaS expert with a focus on decision intelligence and analytics.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

Decision IntelligenceFinancial PlanningRisk ManagementCapital AllocationCustomer IntelligenceData ScienceAnalyticsBig DataHigh-performance Computing

Other Skills

StreamlitProphetFinancial Risk ModelingForecastingInvestment GovernanceData StrategyAI AnalyticsNatural Language ProcessingAI-driven RecommendationsCustomer EngagementClaude SkillsFast APIFlaskPandas (Software)python

About

Data Science and AI leader with 15+ years of experience building decision intelligence systems that influence business planning, investment allocation, and financial risk management. I specialize in translating complex analytics into enterprise systems used by business and finance teams for real-world decision-making. My work spans enterprise forecasting, financial risk modeling, capital allocation, and customer intelligence. Key contributions include: 1. Building a financial risk intelligence system that identified significant revenue exposure and enabled proactive planning 2. Developing an enterprise CAPEX decisioning system used across business units and Holding for investment governance 3. Built ChatBI, an agentic AI analytics tool enabling natural language exploration of business performance (powered by an MCP server) 4. Shaping data architecture for CEO-level dashboards to ensure consistency and trust in enterprise reporting 5. Delivering AI-driven recommendation systems that improved customer engagement and influenced transactions My focus is not just on building models, but on embedding analytics into core business decisions. Earlier in my career, I worked on high-performance computing, parallel systems, and low-level software, with multiple IEEE publications and industry recognitions.

Experience

25 yrs 8 mos

Total Experience

6 yrs 10 mos

Average Tenure

5 yrs 1 mo

Current Experience

Majid al futtaim

Staff data scientist

Apr 2021 – Present · 5 yrs 1 mo · Dubai, United Arab Emirates · On-site

I build decision intelligence systems that help Majid Al Futtaim plan, allocate, and optimize business outcomes across markets.
My work spans financial planning, investment governance, and customer intelligence. I developed a forecasting and risk intelligence system for FP&A that enables scenario-based analysis across business units and countries, incorporating macro and business drivers such as inflation, currency movements, tourism, and asset growth to support proactive financial planning.
I have built an enterprise CAPEX decisioning system used by Holding and business units, enabling structured submissions, hierarchical approvals, and consolidated investment views to support centralized governance. I also shaped data strategy for a CEO-facing dashboard by advocating a federated architecture, ensuring cross-BU metric alignment and reporting consistency.
Built ChatBI, an agentic AI analytics tool enabling natural language exploration of business performance, powered by an MCP server for schema-aware querying and SQL validation to ensure reliable results; incorporated a training mode to capture explicit user feedback for continuous improvement.
I also transformed movie admissions forecasting workflows for VOX by replacing manual benchmarking with a decision-support system, improving productivity and consistency.
On the customer side, I delivered AI-driven personalization capabilities for the loyalty platform, increasing engagement by 80% and influencing 20–25% of offer transactions.
I am particularly interested in translating complex analytical problems into scalable, organization-wide decision systems that are actively used by business stakeholders.

StreamlitProphetDecision IntelligenceFinancial Planning

Publicis sapient

Sr. Manager, Data Science

Jan 2020 – Mar 2021 · 1 yr 2 mos · Bangalore

Led a team of data scientists within the Data & Analytics CoE at Publicis Sapient, delivering COVID-related impact analysis and translating business challenges into data-driven solutions and decision-support systems.

Data ScienceAnalytics

Tavant technologies

Sr. Technical Architect

Feb 2017 – Jan 2020 · 2 yrs 11 mos · Bangalore

Held a hybrid role spanning leadership, architecture, and hands-on delivery in Big Data and Analytics at Tavant.
1. Delivered production-grade commodity pricing models for enterprise clients, enabling data-driven pricing decisions
2. Led and managed Big Data platform support for Azure-based data lake (EDL) infrastructure, ensuring reliability and operational continuity for manufacturing workloads
3. Provided technical oversight for ETL development (NiFi), establishing quality standards and ensuring robust, production-ready data pipelines
4. Mentored junior talent and interns in analytics and Big Data, strengthening team capability and delivery quality
5. Contributed to innovation initiatives, including winning a client hackathon with a solution adopted into business workflows
6. Won internal deep learning competition by developing an end-to-end face recognition system

Big DataAnalytics

Hcl technologies

Group Technical Manager / Senior Technical Manager / Technical Manager – HCL Technologies

Jul 2000 – Jan 2017 · 16 yrs 6 mos · Bangalore, Chennai · On-site

Progressed through multiple leadership and technical roles, building and scaling capabilities across high-performance computing, systems engineering, and Big Data & Analytics. Played a key role in establishing foundational engineering and analytics capabilities that later evolved into enterprise AI initiatives.
Key Contributions
1. Built and led High-Performance Computing and Big Data Centers of Excellence, driving innovation in GPU computing, distributed systems, and large-scale analytics
2. Delivered advanced analytics and machine learning solutions, including predictive maintenance models and recommendation systems, achieving high accuracy and enabling data-driven decision-making for enterprise clients
3. Architected and scaled distributed data systems, including migration of standalone ML systems to Spark-based big data platforms for production deployment
4. Drove technical innovation and research, contributing to multiple IEEE publications and joint industry collaborations (e.g., with Altera), spanning GPU acceleration, anomaly detection, and large-scale data processing
5. Led development of high-performance computing solutions, including GPU-accelerated libraries, image processing pipelines, and optimization of scientific workloads (e.g., 27x acceleration in drug discovery simulations)
6. Established engineering standards and mentored teams, building internal training frameworks, guiding solution architecture, and strengthening delivery capability across teams
7. Contributed to business growth through technical demos, PoCs, and innovation initiatives, supporting new client acquisition and solution adoption
Earlier Engineering Contributions
1. Developed low-level systems, firmware, and operating system components, including embedded Linux enablement, multi-OS systems, device drivers, and storage/networking solutions
2. Led development of system-level components such as USB stacks, Ethernet drivers, and firmware for embedded and high-performance environments