Woman scientist, UN official among India's top analytics

A woman data scientist, a member of the UN's Big Data innovation initiative, analytics thought leaders and a analytics head of a leading online shopping portal are among the top 10 Indian experts who made the biggest impact on the analytics industry in 2014, a new report says.

The annual ranking of the 10 most influential analytics leaders in India by the Analytics India Magazine honours individuals in analytics/Big Data industry who are deemed by their peers and an expert panel to be the most influential individuals in India.

It features Pulak Ghosh, a member of the Data Privacy Advisory Group of Global Pulse-the UN Secretary-General's Big Data innovation initiative, who happens to be the only academician to be named.

Ghosh belongs to the Quantitative Management Information Systems (QMIS) area at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

Mamatha Upadhyaya, director, Data Science and Analytics, Capgemini, is the only woman in the top 10.

Known to be passionate about data science, she is also a founding member of Datakind Bangalore - an organisation that works to build the data-for-good movement in India.

She is also a Cherie Blair Foundation Mentor Alumnus, empowering women worldwide.

Their prowess is estimated in terms of impact, leadership, entrepreneurship and analytics evangelism, a statement said.

In addition, there are experts in business analytics and business intelligence software solutions, innovators and thought leaders such as Sudipta K Sen, vice chairman and board member at SAS Institute (India) , Pankaj Rai, director, Global Analytics at Dell, Atul Jalan, CEO, Manthan, Amit Khanna, partner, KPMG India and Sameer Dhanrajani, business leader, Cognizant Analytics.

Srikanth Velamakanni, co-founder and CEO, Fractal Analytics, Ganapathy V, director, Enterprise Analytics Practice Lead, PHILIPS, and Ravi Vijayaraghavan , vice president and head - analytics, Flipkart.com are the other names featured.