Sydney Lewis

• Developed forecasts of fresh fruits and vegetables to reduce wastage and cost by 17% using outlier detection, smoothing, and forecasting methods
• Applied time series forecasting in various areas such as price forecasting and yield forecasting, improving accuracy by 45%
• Conducted brand analytics to detect affinity and basket suggestions, increasing them by 23% using various basket analysis methods such as the apriori algorithm and association rule mining
• Optimized routes for vehicles and salesmen beat planning, reducing delivery logistics costs by $3M using a framework to solve the vehicle packing problem and Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem
• Developed models for commodity trading with a prediction accuracy of 85%
• Conducted fraud analytics, reducing fraud by 37%
• Completed 77 Proof of Concepts to illustrate possibilities to business teams within 6 months.

• Built prediction models in the field of apparel/fashion with a prediction accuracy of greater than 85%
• Designed models to develop tags for apparel (western wear, ethnic wear, footwear, jewelry, watches, handbags, etc.) using deep learning
• We used Yolo v5 for object detection/classification and neural nets tuned on Resnet-50 for attribute prediction
• Developed a framework for searching near-alike (not duplicate) images within a catalogue in the apparel/fashion industry
• This framework has been filed for PCT
• Worked across the lifecycle of product development, from obtaining image sets to deployment of attribute enrichment APIs, with internal and external teams.

• Designed 5 RFPs (Investor Lead identification and conversion, National Offer Portal, Investor engagement, Investor integrated information hub, global sentiment analysis) and successfully floated them through the government contract process within 3 months – from vendor identification to scripting the RFPs
• Invited top global vendors to participate and respond with their proposals
• Defended the budget with various oversight committees from various government organizations
• Secured a budget of $7 million for these projects for the first year
• Evaluated the responses and proposed the top vendor to the Governor
• Executed the programs in coordination with internal stakeholders – IT, DevOps, Marketing, and Operations teams
• Held periodic meetings with external stakeholders (National Information Center, General Authority of Statistics, Ministry of Data, and various other ministries and entities) to obtain concurrence on data management and governance
• Drove a central data management strategy across the various organizations on the cloud (within Saudi Arabia) to address data sovereignty concerns
• Sought and set taxonomy standards to enable information exchange across various government entities
• Secured one message channel to obtain “single source of truth” across the country for indicative statistics.

• Led the HR and Admin functions, which involved recruiting and retaining talent, measuring and improving performance, complying with legal and ethical standards, managing administrative tasks, and running payroll operations
• Scaled the team from 40 to over 140 members in a month by hiring through vendors who had access to a large pool of qualified candidates for the early-stage startup
• Diversified the talent pipeline by sourcing candidates from various sources, such as campus placements, referrals, job portals, social media, and networking events
• Enhanced the company’s employer brand and reputation by using innovative sourcing techniques and showcasing the company’s culture, values, and vision, which helped the company secure two rounds of funding (Seed and Series A)
• Established and implemented best practices in HR and administration, such as creating employee handbooks, designing performance appraisal systems, conducting employee engagement surveys, organizing training and development programs, and streamlining payroll processes to support the company’s fast growth.

• Transformed a dysfunctional TA unit into a high-performing one
• Managed US$ 35 million plus overseas based revenue through global talent acquisition via vendors
• Selected, empaneled, reviewed, and guided vendors, reducing their number from over 1000 to about 100 in the first phase
• Cleared pending invoices dating back to 2 years and improved payment processing terms
• Created and executed partnership strategy and plans, measuring and reporting vendor performance
• Met hiring goals and contractual obligations in a timely manner
• Boosted team output from 75 hires per quarter to over 300 hires per quarter with the same internal team size
• Crafted effective contract terms for India and other global locations.

• Managed US$ 30 million which was over half of Yahoo’s spend in India through talent acquisition via vendors
• Created a decision matrix to identify all outsourcing needs of Yahoo in India, including vendor management and hiring of all sub-contractors/temporary staff in India
• Chose, empaneled, reviewed, and directed vendors, aligning with the goals of various business units and internal stakeholders
• Set standards for vendors to create/maintain Outsourced Development Centers with the collaboration of IT, DevOps, NetOps, Security, and other teams
• Conducted audits to ensure compliance, saving over $1.5 million annually by clearing loose ends in contractual terms
• Cleared pending invoices dating back to 8 years (vendor had given up on payment), restoring partner trust
• Negotiated internally with the CFO to get an exception of payment cycle of 30 days instead of 90 days
• This helped us get better rates and more engagement from vendors
• Expanded from a 265 to a 700+ contingent workforce in a year, across a wide range of vendors, from contract staffing vendors to the largest IT majors such as Infosys, HCL and TCS
• Built a 326-seat ODC at HCL in 3 months, followed by a 150-seat ODC at TCS and 90-seat ODC at Infosys.

• Led the strategy for the Executive team, identifying and implementing solutions (software tools/processes) to drive business outcomes
• Developed and launched a breakthrough solution (One touch) for backup and recovery software that enabled remote support, reduced downtime, and improved customer satisfaction
• Identified key priorities for the year and quarter as part of the executive leadership team, ensuring alignment, collaboration, and accountability across the organization
• Worked with internal call/chat support teams to drive data analysis to spot hidden trends and upcoming spikes in support tickets.

• Coached executives and leaders to improve their performance and skills
• Conducted workshops and training for management teams and leaders on leadership, communication, teamwork, and problem-solving
• Worked hands-on with project teams using data-driven approaches and best practices
• Drove savings of over $2M annually through data analysis on a standout project with the travel team.

• Bridged the talent to the requirements for all of Bangalore.

• Worked with Fidelity’s global clients to find the best way to automate secure transfers of large and sensitive data files (401K and other contribution files).

Development and support on mainframe for a food processing giant (JM Smucker’s)