VARIJ LOCHAN
Associate Director: Analytics
Bangalore
Summary
Analytics leader with 16+ years of experience delivering enterprise-scale analytics and AI solutions across Retail, FMCG, CPG, Banking, Hospitality, Liquor, and Manufacturing domains. Proven track record of driving revenue growth, customer engagement, risk optimization, and operational efficiency through advanced analytics, GenAI, and predictive modelling. Adept at translating complex business problems into scalable analytics products, influencing senior stakeholders, and leading multi-disciplinary teams across geographies.
Work History
Associate Director
Standard Chartered Bank
08.2024 - Current
- Role: Working in the Risk Analytics space as an analytics solution architect, providing end to end project management support to the team and managing the stakeholder requirements.
- Key Deliverables:
- GenAI-Based Regulatory Intelligence (RAG): Designed and delivered a RAG platform ingesting regulatory guidance (e.g., RBI, internal policies) to recommend relevant risks, controls, and process changes—reducing manual interpretation effort and improving regulatory traceability
- AI-Assisted Control Rationalization: Led AI-driven similarity analysis to identify redundant controls, supporting control simplification and harmonization initiatives
- Transaction Risk Decomposition: Applied statistical modelling to rationalize value vs. volume weighting in portfolio risk scores, replacing judgment-based approaches with defensible analytics
- Spearheaded end-to-end delivery of analytical and risk assessment products, ensuring alignment with internal customer requirements.
- Conduct requirement elicitation for predictive and proactive analytical models and risk assessment tools through stakeholder interviews, translating needs into actionable user stories.
Senior Manager
Tredence Inc
03.2022 - 05.2023
- Role: Driving projects in retail by leading multiple teams of data scientists, analysts and managers to deliver accurate, relevant and quantifiable insights for diverse clients.
- Key Deliverables:
- Customer segmentations for better targeting and understanding wallet share, CLTV, Churn, retention and acquisition customer base
- To enhance customer engagement by leveraging advanced analytics and identify key drivers of growth and develop data-driven strategies that maximize the conversion of leads into paying customers
- Optimal customer engagement plan through strategies using Heuristic methods
- Budget enhancement for marketing channels through MMM (Multiplicative Models/Bayesian).
Manager
Landmark Group
02.2019 - 02.2022
- Role: Managed Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Customer value management (CVM) for 8 Retail chains(200+Stores), in the areas: (Apparel, home furnishing, hospitality).
- Key Deliverables:
- Loyalty program Campaigns, advertisement & Promotions effectiveness
- Assortment analysis, Payment method analysis, Wallet share analysis
- Forecasting sales for multiple retail chain using Multivariate techniques
Manager
Tata Consultancy Services
05.2018 - 01.2019
- Summary: Worked for a liquor brand (Diageo), transitioning of reports to the team, documentation of the process and managing daily reports, dashboards
- Key Deliverables:
- Study the AS-IS data architecture of the GB depletion process
- Quantify the workload in terms of manpower/FTE
- Suggest automation/improvement areas
Manager
Tata Consultancy Services
06.2010 - 04.2018
- Summary: Worked for multiple clients (Nielsen, Aldi, Lidl, Carrefour, Auchan, Office Max) for the Europe and US region in the retail statistical operation’s domain as a business analyst, senior business analyst, assistant manager, and Manager in the course of time
- Key Deliverables:
- Utilize advanced analytics techniques to develop pricing models and algorithms.
- Analyse large datasets to identify pricing trends, customer behaviour.
- Conduct pricing experiments and A/B tests to evaluate the impact of pricing changes on key performance metrics.
Production Engineer
Kathuria Roll Mills
06.2004 - 01.2007
- Summary:
- -presales presentations to clients on the design specification and quality requirements
- -Replying to technical queries during negotiation stage
Education
MBA Degree - Marketing, Operations & IT
04.2010
Bachelor of Technology - undefined
01.2004
Skills
LLM, RAG, Agentic AI, Financial Risks, Marketing & Customer Analytics, Loyalty program, Market analysis, Incremental Revenue optimization, Campaign optimization, Customer journey road maps, Inventory management, demand forecasting, Data analysis, Process improvement, Reporting, sales funnel optimization, Depletion process (Liquor Industry), Project management, Stakeholder
Agile project management
Lean Six Sigma expertise
Advanced retrieval-augmented generation models
Multivariate regression analysis
Career Highlights
Strategic leadership
- - Led efforts resulting in approximately USD $4 Mn (7%↑) revenue contribution through marketing analytics (Market Mix Modelling, customer segmentation, retention and churn prevention programs and improve wallet share)
- - Orchestrated a 5% boost in purchase frequency, elevating customer engagement
- - Strategically reduced Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) by 10%, enhancing ROI
- - Achieved a remarkable 13% increase in Click Through Rate (CTR), optimizing campaign performance
Project management
- - Delivered a Stakeholder Net Promoter Score (NPS) of ~8
- - Benchmarked Project Marginal Revenue by an impressive 55%, demonstrating financial acumen.
Process
- - Pioneered a remarkable 45% reduction in touch time, improving operational agility.
Awards & Recognition
Nielsen Employee of the year: 2012 & 2013
Timeline
Associate Director - Standard Chartered Bank
08.2024 - Current
Senior Manager - Tredence Inc
03.2022 - 05.2023
Manager - Landmark Group
02.2019 - 02.2022
Manager - Tata Consultancy Services
05.2018 - 01.2019
Manager - Tata Consultancy Services
06.2010 - 04.2018
Production Engineer - Kathuria Roll Mills
06.2004 - 01.2007
Utkal University (BPUT) - Bachelor of Technology,
Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India - MBA Degree, Marketing, Operations & IT