Kurunji Kumaran Kulandavelu

I am a Senior Manager at AstraZeneca with a focus on bridging the gap between engineering, business and finance.

My career is defined by building transparency into complex IT ecosystems—whether through spearheading Cloud FinOps initiatives that delivered millions in projected annual savings or managing large-scale software compliance portfolios.

I specialize in leveraging data-driven KPIs and automated financial tracking to ensure cloud investments are optimized for enterprise-level growth.

Experienced specializing in Cloud FinOps, software compliance includes ITAM, and IT Infrastructure lifecycle management includes ITSM and Infrastructure Deliveries.

Proven track record of delivering massive financial impact, including $43M in cloud savings and $77M in software licensing risk reduction. Expert in aligning IT operations with finance to drive accountability, optimize spend, and scale global infrastructure.

Recognized for transforming operational quality, notably increasing CMDB accuracy from 42% to 97%, and leading high-stakes vendor-to-internal transitions.

Key Achievements

• Financial Leadership: Delivered $43M and ongoing in savings by optimizing cloud spend and driving financial accountability across global teams.
• Data Integrity: Spearheaded a data quality initiative that improved CMDB accuracy from 42% to 97%, significantly reducing operational errors.
• Infrastructure & ITAM Governance: Spearheaded a comprehensive data quality initiative that improved CMDB accuracy from 42% to 97%, while designing and executing end-to-end ITAM governance processes—including seamless hardware/software onboarding and offboarding—to ensure full lifecycle visibility and reduced operational risk.
• Infrastructure Transformation: Orchestrated the end-to-end insourcing transition of IT infrastructure from offshore vendors to AstraZeneca, ensuring 100% service continuity while consolidating vendor contracts and simplifying "Hands and Eye" (H&E) datacenter operations for increased efficiency.

Strategic IT leader and Regional Infrastructure Operations Lead for the APAC region, including India, Sri Lanka, Philippines, and Singapore.

I managed a global team of L3 engineers and SMEs to maintain high-availability platforms across Datacenters and Virtualization, with deep expertise in Wintel, VMware, IAM, Tooling, and Storage.

I specialize in driving operational excellence through large-scale datacenter consolidations, enterprise virtualization programs, and ITIL-aligned process improvements that ensure scalability and resilience.

Key Achievements

• Regional Operational Excellence: Led a global team of L3 engineers and SMEs, driving a 20% improvement in operational efficiency across Wintel, VMware, Backup, IAM, and Storage platforms through standardized performance monitoring.
• Infrastructure Modernization & Migration: Orchestrated a large-scale datacenter consolidation and modernization program, leveraging virtualization and vendor partnerships to achieve significant cost reductions with zero downtime.
• Business Continuity & Resilience: Revamped the regional disaster recovery strategy, successfully reducing recovery time by 30% and ensuring minimal data loss during active incidents.
• ITIL Governance & Compliance: Championed process improvements that achieved 100% compliance with ITIL standards and consistent success across internal and external audits.
• EUC & Service Enhancement: Spearheaded user-centric End-User Computing (EUC) improvements, utilizing targeted service enhancements to reduce incident and request volume by 17%.

Technical lead responsible for engineering and securing enterprise-grade server and network infrastructures.

I focused on optimizing performance across mission-critical datacenters and ensuring the high availability of core Microsoft services, SQL databases, and regional network connectivity to maintain business continuity for voice support.

Key Achievements

• Infrastructure Engineering: Engineered and maintained robust server and network architectures, ensuring high availability and optimized performance for enterprise-scale datacenter operations.
• Network & Connectivity Monitoring: Managed regional connectivity by monitoring MPLS link health and network performance, ensuring 24/7 uptime for critical business communication channels.
• Microsoft Ecosystem Management: Optimized and administered critical Microsoft technologies, including Active Directory (AD), DHCP, DNS, and DFS, to ensure seamless identity management.
• Database & Data Integrity: Managed and tuned SQL databases, implementing rigorous maintenance protocols to guarantee operational continuity and protect data integrity.
• Security & Optimization: Integrated security best practices into core infrastructure builds, proactively identifying and resolving performance bottlenecks to enhance system reliability.

Technical project role focused on infrastructure backup and recovery operations and end-user platform support.

I provided day-to-day IT assistance and managed data protection services for enterprise clients, specifically supporting the Polaris Consulting account.

Key Achievements

• Backup & Recovery Operations: Executed daily backup schedules and recovery procedures, offshore tape movements to ensure data integrity and business continuity for Polaris Consulting.
• Enterprise Support: Resolved day-to-day IT queries and technical issues for end-users, ensuring consistent access to critical business applications and resources.