Abdullah Rao

Visionary enterprise data and analytics leader with 19+ years of progressive experience driving data governance, AI/ML-enabled analytics strategy, and high-performing team leadership across global, complex organizations. Proven track record building and scaling distributed, cross-functional teams of up to 17 professionals, delivering measurable business outcomes through data governance, data quality, master data management (MDM), and cloud-native analytics platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure). Deep expertise translating executive strategic priorities into scalable analytics operating models, managing portfolio demand, and enabling self-service BI across enterprise business functions.

Recently completed Master of Organizational Management (Cumulative GPA: 3.87) at Crandall University with graduate coursework in strategic management, organizational change leadership, financial management, and executive communication directly reinforcing the people leadership and evidence-based decision-making mandate of a leadership role.

Ambassador & First Deputy Convener - Dean's Leadership Action at Graduate School of Management, Crandall University (2026-01 – Present)

Appointed to senior student governance leadership within a graduate management program, exercising organizational strategy, stakeholder coordination, and institutional event oversight at executive level. Applies graduate coursework in strategic management, change leadership, and organizational communication to real institutional challenges; bridging academic insight with practical leadership delivery.

• Conceived and executed the inaugural Dean's Distinguished Speaker Series and Dean's Honor Roll — demonstrating vision, organizational management, and cross-functional execution in an academic leadership context.

Senior Manager, Customer Engineering at Reltio (2023-03 – 2025-03)

Led and scaled a globally distributed team of 17 engineers across India, China, EMEA, and the US; delivering SaaS Master Data Management (MDM) analytics solutions for Fortune-class enterprise clients. Defined team analytics operating model including demand intake, prioritization frameworks, and delivery standards, directly analogous to the ED&A operating model mandate at Stantec.

• Spearheaded AI-based process optimization initiatives that materially reduced issue resolution time and elevated customer experience resulting in practical application of AI/ML to organizational effectiveness at scale.
• Drove end-to-end analytics delivery lifecycle: translated complex business problems into scalable technical solutions, managed escalations, and coordinated cross-functional stakeholders to ensure measurable outcomes.
• Analyzed customer sentiment data and usage analytics to identify systemic risks; applied data-driven prioritization to align engineering capacity with highest-impact business needs and solution roadmap.
• Directed enterprise Major Incident Management, identification, coordination, resolution, and executive post-mortem review for all high-severity incidents across global enterprise clients.
• Communicated complex technical findings and analytical insights regularly to non-technical executive stakeholders, ensuring tight alignment between analytics delivery and business strategy.

Principal Software Engineer - Advanced Customer Engineering (ACE) at Informatica LLC (2018-08 – 2023-02)

Served as hands-on technical lead for enterprise analytics and data management platforms: Enterprise Data Catalog, Data Quality, Data Governance, Data Marketplace, and cloud-native/serverless architectures. Leveraged AWS (S3, Neptune), ELK/Elasticsearch, Apache Iceberg, Hadoop, Solr, and Kerberos to architect, optimize, and resolve complex data pipeline and data governance challenges across customer environments.

• Led cross-functional engineers delivering emergency fixes and service packs for Informatica Axon (Data Governance); coordinating tightly with Architects, R&D, and Product Management across time zones.
• Drove process improvement by automating QA test coverage for missed customer scenarios; building a culture of continuous improvement and strengthening platform reliability across product releases.
• Delivered technical enablement sessions, proof-of-concept demonstrations, and solution workshops to enterprise clients; bridging advanced analytics capability with practical, measurable business application.
• Recognized with multiple INFA Star Awards for Customer First and Act As One Team; reflecting excellence in stakeholder influence, cross-functional leadership, and analytical problem-solving.

Manager - Advanced Customer Engineering (ACE) at Informatica Business Solutions Pvt. Ltd. (2018-05 – 2018-08)

Founded and operationalized the ACE department; designed escalation triage, issue prioritization, and resolution workflows that became the enterprise standard across Global Customer Support. Served as single point of contact for all customer and field escalations; coordinating resolution across R&D, Product Management, Support, Sales, and Professional Services in a complex, matrixed organization.

• Delivered on-site advisory support to enterprise clients, enabling adoption of data management platforms in complex production environments; demonstrating trusted advisor capability.

Principal Quality Assurance Engineer at Informatica Business Solutions Pvt. Ltd. (2015-04 – 2018-05)

Core founding member of the Live Data Map R&D team — built the enterprise data catalog from the ground up, encompassing data profiling, metadata cataloging, lineage tracking, and ETL pipeline validation. Technically managed a team of 8 QA engineers; owned release timelines, automated ~80% of product test coverage, and collaborated with architects on data sizing and system design guidelines.

• Championed data governance and data quality best practices across the full product lifecycle — embedding stewardship principles into platform architecture from inception.

Lead QA Engineer → Senior QA Engineer → QA Engineer at Informatica Business Solutions Pvt. Ltd. (2006-08 – 2015-04)

Progressed through engineering ranks over 9 years; led junior engineers, owned end-to-end service pack releases, and built automation frameworks covering Data Analyzer, Metadata Manager, and Informatica Data Explorer.

• Represented QA in customer-facing forums (multiple INFA World), gathering real-world data use cases and translating them into improved test coverage, product enhancements, and analytics roadmap insights.

Master of Organizational Management in Organizational Management – Crandall University (2025-05 – 2026-04)

Master of Computer Applications in Computer Applications – University of Madras (2003-06 – 2006-04)

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science – University of Madras (2000-06 – 2003-04)