Dr. SAYED PEERZADE

• Head of Special Initiatives
  
  Overview:
  As the Head of Special Initiatives, I led groundbreaking projects in cloud technology and artificial intelligence, driving innovation and business growth. My role involved designing, building, and launching two major initiatives that have positioned India as a leader in the global tech landscape.
  
  Key Achievements:
  
  Yantraa:
  • Designed and built Yantraa, India’s first indigenous hyperscale public Cloud and Edge ecosystem, leveraging the Open Infra concept. This project exemplifies the ‘Make in India’ initiative, showcasing cutting-edge technology and local innovation.
  
  Shakti AI Cloud:
  • Conceptualised, developed, and launched Shakti AI Cloud, India’s first and largest AI-HPC Cloud. This system ranks among the world’s top 10 AI clusters and quantum simulation systems, with 16 exaflops of supercomputing infrastructure powered by over 16,000 H100 and Blackwell GPUs.
  
  Responsibilities:
  
  • Managed the Cloud Business Unit with full P&L ownership, overseeing strategy, execution, and performance.
  • Developed government strategies for cloud bids, securing key contracts and partnerships.
  • Built comprehensive cloud solutions, including public, enterprise, private, and hybrid cloud services.
  • Expanded the business unit to include media services, such as Render Farm as a Service, Studio as a Service, and Virtual Studio as a Service.
  • Worked closely with stakeholders, functional entities, departments, teams, alliance partners, and vendors to align processes, systems, customer service, product development, sales, and marketing with cloud technology goals.
  • Developed outsourcing strategies, ensuring quality, process optimization, and thorough documentation.
  • Hired and mentored a high-performing team, defining investment strategies for resource training and development.

Starting as a founding team member and General Manager of the Network Operations Center (NOC) at Zapak Digital Entertainment, I have progressively advanced to the role as Group CIO at Reliance Entertainment. My journey here has encompassed every facet of building, consolidating, and scaling technology operations, from ideation to inception, launch, and beyond.

Key Achievements:

• Provided the technology vision and roadmap to achieve the group’s goals, ensuring an exceptional customer experience.
• Played a pivotal role in ideating and establishing Reliance Games, now a stable revenue-generating entity second only to the movie content business within the group.
• Initiated and launched a social media marketing agency, now a fully-fledged business entity known as WWO.
• Developed B2C platforms in OTT, gaming, and e-commerce, driving them from concept to successful business ventures using cutting-edge digital technologies.
• Led operational improvements and introduced new business ideas through digital transformations, fostering innovation and growth.
• Promoted a culture of data-driven decision-making across the group, leveraging Big Data, AI, and ML for product automation and business analysis.

Operational Excellence:

• Planned technology investments, managed operating costs, and owned technology budgets, transforming the IT department from a cost center to a profit center.
• Implemented world-class quality, process, and documentation standards to ensure operational excellence.
• Worked closely with cross-functional teams, international partners, and vendors to align processes, systems, customer services, product development, sales, and marketing with technological advancements.
• Recruited and led a dynamic, highly energetic global technology team.
• Mentored team members and defined strategic investment plans for training and development, ensuring continuous growth and expertise within the team.

• Successfully managed a comprehensive 1000-seat animation and VFX studio, overseeing all aspects of infrastructure, data center operations, and application management. Under my leadership, the studio was fully equipped to start and sustain its business operations. This studio, now known as Disney Studio following the acquisition of UTV by Disney, stands as a testament to my ability to create and manage large-scale, high-performance creative environments.

• Led comprehensive management of infrastructure, projects, helpdesk, assets, disaster recovery, processes, and audits for the bank’s global operations. My role ensured seamless and efficient functioning across all these critical areas, driving operational excellence and robust support for the bank’s international activities.

Founding Team Member and Technology Leader:

As a founding team member, I have been integral to the organization’s journey from inception. My role has spanned across diverse areas, contributing to the incredible people, dynamic meetings, recruitment, cultural development, performance analysis, product strategy, and scaling for growth. The culmination of these efforts is a deep satisfaction with our collective achievements.

Key Accomplishments:

Establishment of Internet Data Centers & NOC:
• Successfully established comprehensive Internet Data Centers and Network Operations Centers (NOC) in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad from the ground up, creating a complete ISP ecosystem.

Pioneering Monitoring Systems:
• Designed and implemented India’s first monitoring system for cable internet networks, setting a new standard in the industry.

Advanced Network Designs:
• Executed RF network design, OFC network design, and implemented the MSO CAS network (NDS, IBS, and MQ).

These experiences have allowed me to learn and grow, both professionally and personally, and to take immense pride in what we have built together.

• Networking Knowledge Foundation:
  
  My foundational expertise in networking began at Netex, where I played a pivotal role in the installation and commissioning of large-scale AT&T (Lucent) structured cabling projects. This experience encompassed extensive network and system installations, as well as ongoing maintenance, laying the groundwork for my comprehensive understanding and proficiency in networking.