Poornima Ananthakrishnan

Cognizant Technology Solutions | Chennai, India
Mar 2024 – Present

• Lead pre-sales and bid management for the Americas Retail Business Unit, supporting large strategic pursuits across grocery, apparel, and specialty retail.
• Own end-to-end RFP/RFI lifecycle — qualification, solutioning, pricing coordination, governance reviews, and final submissions.
• Partner with solution architects, finance, legal, delivery, and account leadership to align technical solutions with commercial and operational viability.
• Contributed to $10M–$100M TCV pursuits, supporting deal shaping, risk mitigation, and client-specific value propositions.
• Drive win themes, competitive positioning, and differentiation based on client pain points and industry trends.
• Coordinate proposal workshops, red team reviews, pricing reviews, and orals, ensuring compliance, clarity, and executive-ready messaging.
• Support account mining and proactive proposals, expanding wallet share within existing retail accounts.
• Engage with industry analysts and research bodies to strengthen Cognizant’s positioning in retail technology solutions.

Impact Snapshot

• Supported multiple high-value pursuits in the $10M–$100M range
• Reduced proposal turnaround time through standardized templates and governance rigor
• Improved proposal quality and stakeholder alignment across cross-functional teams

Quad Fitness Pvt Ltd | Chennai, India
Feb 2020 – Feb 2023

Intentional career sabbatical following childbirth, during which I chose a flexible, customer-centric role to remain professionally active, avoid career disengagement, and continue building client-facing and business ownership skills.

• Built and managed a personal client portfolio, driving onboarding, engagement, retention, and value expansion through structured, outcome-focused interactions.
• Applied consultative selling and personalized solutioning to address individual client needs, ensuring long-term engagement and measurable success.
• Collected and analyzed customer feedback to refine service offerings and improve overall client satisfaction.
• Maintained hands-on client engagement and end-to-end ownership, including scheduling, delivery, progress tracking, and relationship management.
• Strengthened client communication, stakeholder management, and outcome-driven engagement — skills directly transferable to enterprise customer success, pre-sales, and account strategy roles.

Mindtree Ltd & Cognizant Technology Solutions | Chennai, India
Jul 2007 – Jan 2019

• Progressed from Individual Contributor to Test Manager and PMO roles, supporting large global BFS and enterprise accounts.
• Acted as offshore delivery lead, coordinating with U.S.-based clients and cross-location teams.
• Led QA planning, execution, defect management, and delivery governance across Agile and Waterfall programs.
• Managed PMO functions including resource planning, timesheets, invoicing, revenue forecasting, and KPI reporting.
• Delivered client demos, audits, knowledge transfers, and executive updates.

Key Clients

• Royal Sundaram Alliance
• Northern Trust
• Franklin Templeton Investments
• Metavante Banking Solutions
• TMP Worldwide Advertising & Communications
• Yale AMS & QA Services