SENDHIL KUMAR
Senior IT Leader
Bangalore
Summary
Seasoned IT executive with 25 years of experience driving enterprise infrastructure and digital transformation in regulated industries. Expertise in aligning technology strategies with business goals, ensuring high platform reliability. Focused on enhancing organizational maturity through governance, technical proficiency, and innovation.
Overview
26
26
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Associate Director - IT
Syngene International Ltd
02.2022 - Current
- Strategic Alignment: Champion digital transformation and ERP initiatives, aligning IT strategy with business objectives to drive automation and data-driven decision-making.
- Executive Advisory: Advise leadership on IT investments and CAPEX/OPEX budget ownership, ensuring strategic alignment with organizational growth and ROI.
- Infrastructure Modernization: Spearhead cloud adoption and virtualization (Azure, WVD, VMware, Citrix) to enhance scalability, agility, and cost efficiency.
- Data Resilience: Oversee enterprise storage and backup modernization (NetApp, Hitachi, Veeam) while executing audited DR/BCP strategies to meet RPO/RTO targets.
- Network & Security Operations: Direct nationwide network and SOC operations, implementing advanced solutions (Cisco/Meraki, Fortinet) and EDR/ATP deployment to safeguard assets.
- Operational Excellence: Establish frameworks for high availability and performance, consistently delivering >99.9% uptime for mission-critical platforms.
- Regulatory Compliance: Ensure continuous adherence to GxP, CSV, and ISO 27001/27017/27018 standards within highly regulated environments.
- Financial Stewardship: Drive cost optimization through license rationalization, infrastructure consolidation, and strategic vendor contract negotiations.
- Team Leadership: Build and mentor high-performing, cross-functional IT teams, fostering a culture of innovation, accountability, and continuous improvement.
DGM - IT
The Akshaya Patra Foundation
06.2015 - 02.2022
- Virtualization: Spearheaded the transition to hybrid-cloud architectures using Microsoft Azure and WVD to drive agility and infrastructure modernization.
- ERP Strategy: Integrated core business processes with ERP systems to streamline cross-functional workflows and ensure robust regulatory adherence.
- Storage & Recovery: Engineered high-performance SAN/NAS environments and automated recovery protocols using Veeam to guarantee business continuity.
- Network & Security: Directed the modernization of enterprise network fabrics and security perimeters, focusing on nationwide WLAN stability and threat mitigation.
- Collaboration Platforms: Optimized the administration of Office 365 and G-Suite ecosystems to foster secure, real-time collaboration across distributed regions.
- Data Center Growth: Architected large-scale infrastructure expansions, managing critical upgrades to server and firewall hardware to accommodate business scaling.
- Fiscal Management: Governed the IT financial lifecycle, leveraging strategic vendor negotiations to optimize CAPEX/OPEX and overall total cost of ownership (TCO).
- Operations & Talent: Cultivated top-tier technical teams through the implementation of standardized ITIL-aligned SOPs and performance-driven leadership.
- Bangalore
IT Operations Manager
IBM (Aditya Birla Group - Client)
10.2013 - 04.2015
- Team Leadership: Lead cross-functional End User Support and Data Center teams, managing hiring, performance, and career growth.
- Infrastructure Strategy: Architect and deploy scalable server and remote technologies aligned with corporate roadmaps.
- Operational Governance: Oversee regional patching, application delivery, and the creation of standardized operating procedures.
- Project & Change Management: Drive regional technology projects and provide governance as a Change Advisory Board (CAB) member.
- Strategic Procurement: Led technical validation for organization-wide IT procurement and vendor selection.
- Escalation Leadership: Served as the final technical authority for critical infrastructure and user outages.
- Service Excellence: Manage incident workflows and establish SLA/OLA benchmarks to ensure high service standards.
- Performance Analytics: Analyze support metrics to implement strategies that increase end-user self-sufficiency and reduce ticket volume.
Deputy Manager - IT
ICFAI University
04.2007 - 09.2013
- Storage Strategy: Directed multi-tier NAS, SAN, and DAS architectures to optimize data performance.
- Managed Sun Microsystems (ILOM), IBM X Series, and HP ML servers across multi-campus sites.
- Data Resilience: Governed enterprise tape-drive backup and archival systems for offline protection.
- Network Engineering: Led Extreme Networks (Core/Distribution) and Motorola/Altitude wireless deployments.
- Managed UTM Firewall policies and security configurations for campus environments.
- Vendor & SLA Management: Drove corrective actions with OEMs and SIs based on SLA/OM metric analysis.
- IT Asset Management: Oversaw end-to-end ITAM for distributed university and campus locations.
- Hyderabad
Systeme Administrator
Aditya Networks
06.2004 - 03.2007
- Oversaw day-to-day network operations and server health to ensure high availability.
- Managed full-lifecycle Windows and Linux server administration and cross-platform technical operations.
- Acted as Lead Trainer for junior staff in Windows/Linux administration and infrastructure best practices.
- Directed routine maintenance, troubleshooting, and optimization of core server environments.
- Provided advanced technical support for complex network and server-side infrastructure issues.
- Hyderabad
System Engineer
Computer Academy
03.2000 - 05.2004
- Managed LANs, enterprise systems, and network security.
- Delivered training for A+ and Network+ certifications.
- End User computing support.
- Remote support administration call.
Education
Bachelor of Computer Applications -
Skills
Business strategy
Technological advancement
Information security management
Budget management
Portfolio oversight
Executive communication strategy
Digital transformation
Data center optimization
Automated infrastructure management
ERP Systems: SAP S/4HANA, or Microsoft Dynamics 365 Dynamics
Virtualization technology
Tiered storage solutions
Network architecture design
HCI architecture
Microsoft 365 solutions
Certification
ITILV3 Foundation
Timeline
Associate Director - IT
Syngene International Ltd
02.2022 - Current
DGM - IT
The Akshaya Patra Foundation
06.2015 - 02.2022
IT Operations Manager
IBM (Aditya Birla Group - Client)
10.2013 - 04.2015
Deputy Manager - IT
ICFAI University
04.2007 - 09.2013
Systeme Administrator
Aditya Networks
06.2004 - 03.2007
System Engineer
Computer Academy
03.2000 - 05.2004
Bachelor of Computer Applications -
Technology Skills
- Digital Transformation A multi-year infrastructure strategy to bridge On-Prem performance with Cloud scalability for digital innovations for the enterprise applications.
- Leading the migration of legacy on-premise workloads to muti cloud using Lift-and-Shift and refactoring strategies.
- Implementing automation frameworks to standardize provisioning and reduce configuration drift.
- Governing high-availability virtualization infrastructure, strengthening scalability, resource optimization, and SDN integration.
- Directed deployment of ransomware-resilient, air-gapped backups to ensure secure recovery and business continuity across multi-vendor environments.
- Managing multi-petabyte environments across all enterprise storages for cost-effective data lifecycle management, moving cold data to low-cost cloud tiers (Azure Blob/AWS S3, GCP)
- Spearheaded network transformation to strengthen multi-site connectivity and improve operational efficiency.
- Data Centre Operations | High Availability & Resilience for simplify data and scaling.
- Architecting and governing secure, scalable Microsoft 365 ecosystems, focusing on hybrid migrations, Entra ID security, Purview compliance, and automated endpoint management .
- Proficient in CSV/GMP protocols; experienced in IQ/OQ/PQ validation life cycles, Data Integrity and ensuring compliance with FDA 21 CFR Part 11, EU Annex 11.