Sundar Rama

Enterprise technology consulting executive, practice leader, and chief architect with 25+ years of experience leading multi-million-dollar legacy core modernizations, cloud migrations, enterprise data platforms, and production AI initiatives for Tier-1 banking, financial services, and Fortune 500 institutions. Proven sales and pre-sales leader holding full P&L accountability ($9M–$12M) and commercial deal pursuit ownership ($8M–$25M+), authoring architectural win themes, commercial pricing models, utilization economics, and delivering competitive oral defenses. Trusted board-level advisor presenting strategic transformation roadmaps, ROI models, architecture trade-offs, FinOps cost optimization, and risk governance frameworks directly to C-suite stakeholders (CIO, CTO, CDO, CFO).

Extensive technical mastery across legacy monoliths (IBM z/OS, COBOL, CICS, DB2, IMS, VSAM, JCL) and modern cloud ecosystems (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform). Proven authority executing core modernization patterns including Strangler-Fig decomposition, automated refactoring, re-platforming, and hybrid coexistence with automated bidirectional data synchronization via Kafka CDC. Secured over $80M+ in cumulative technology modernization, ERP, and AI advisory contracts throughout consulting career, sustaining a 70%+ competitive win rate on Tier-1 RFP/RFI pursuits while guiding global practices of 60+ engineers at 25%–35% engagement margins.

Consistently achieved 105%–115% of annual practice sales and revenue quotas.

Practice Director & GTM Leader, Cloud & AI Modernization at WIPRO TECHNOLOGIES (2015-01 – Present)

Steer the Financial Services Modernization practice, managing full P&L accountability for a $9M–$12M annual account portfolio and delivering 30%–40% year-over-year revenue expansion across Tier-1 North American banking accounts.

• Lead end-to-end pre-sales solutioning and commercial defense for multi-year enterprise modernization pursuits valued from $8M to $25M+, developing solution blueprints, staffing pyramids, commercial rate cards, and client ROI business cases; consistently achieved 105%–115% of annual practice sales targets.
• Partnered with Microsoft, AWS, and Google Cloud alliance leadership to co-create joint go-to-market (GTM) accelerators, generating $20M+ in partner-led advisory pipeline and co-selling opportunities across banking and insurance.
• Guided the core banking migration of 12+ legacy core banking systems (COBOL, CICS, IMS, DB2 on IBM z/OS) to Azure and AWS using phased Strangler-Fig decomposition, automated refactoring, and AWS Blu Age / Micro Focus runtime tooling.
• Engineered hybrid coexistence frameworks between on-premise IBM mainframe workloads and distributed cloud environments, establishing bidirectional Kafka CDC data synchronization pipelines that preserved transaction integrity with zero cutover outages.
• Deployed modern GenAI-assisted SDLC tooling across client delivery programs using IBM watsonx Code Assistant and Azure OpenAI, automating COBOL-to-Java conversion, automated test case synthesis, and technical documentation to reduce migration delivery schedules by 40%.
• Designed and deployed production-grade GenAI and multi-agent platforms using AWS Bedrock, Azure AI Foundry, LangChain, LangGraph, and vector stores, embedding automated guardrails, hallucination checks, and PII masking across regulatory compliance and credit-scoring workflows.
• Direct a global cross-functional practice of 60+ cloud architects, ML engineers, and software developers across onshore, nearshore, and offshore delivery centers, consistently achieving 25%–35% gross delivery margins and 85%+ billable realization.
• Established enterprise testing and operational resilience frameworks, enforcing workload stress simulation, automated regression suites, FinOps cost monitoring, and disaster recovery controls to meet strict client SLA, SLO, and DORA resilience mandates.
• Commercial Origination & Pre-Sales Originated and closed $80M+ in cumulative transformation contracts, driving proactive solution development, competitive oral defenses, and CxO alignment workshops across North American Tier-1 banks.
• AI-Driven Business Transformation Architected and deployed enterprise-grade multi-agent GenAI platforms and operating models, driving 40% delivery acceleration and operational cost takeouts for regulated banking workflows.
• Core Legacy Modernization to Cloud Led end-to-end legacy core banking transformations (IBM z/OS to multi-cloud), enabling zero-outage hybrid coexistence via Kafka CDC while eliminating legacy technical debt.

Senior Manager – Application Modernization & Data Practice Leader at CAPGEMINI LLP (2012-01 – 2015-12)

• Partnered with account leaders on pre-sales proposals, RFP responses, ROI financial modeling, and executive pitches that generated $40M+ in qualified modernization pipeline opportunities across banking and insurance sectors.
• Led Application migration and data platform modernization programs for 11 legacy data and application estates across major insurance and commercial banking institutions, establishing target architectures.
• Re-engineered and refactored 300+ legacy modules and mainframe batch interfaces into modular ETL (initial Python code) orchestration frameworks (API/Microservices) and early data pipelines, reducing daily processing windows by 35%.
• Deployed early natural language processing and document extraction pipelines to automate insurance claims verification workflows, delivering $4M in verified recurring annual operational savings.
• Built and rolled out a standardized Migration Factory delivery model, utilizing automated code converters, standardized testing scorecards, and CI/CD quality gates across multi-system client portfolios.
• Managed multi-vendor delivery programs across a $12M engagement budget while supervising blended onshore/offshore delivery teams to maintain gross margins and delivery SLAs.

Senior Manager – Enterprise Transformation & Risk Analytics at ERNST & YOUNG LLP (EY) (2009-01 – 2012-12)

• Directed engagement scoping, business case authoring, and executive alignment workshops with banking CxOs, converting complex regulatory mandates into multi-year advisory and implementation programs.
• Directed legacy modernization and architecture consolidation across 9 compliance platforms for commercial banking clients, integrating IBM z/OS, DB2, and InfoSphere DataStage to prepare core estates for distributed analytical processing.
• Designed target integration models using IBM WebSphere and enterprise service bus (ESB) frameworks, converting monolithic regulatory compliance routines into reusable, decoupled service-oriented architecture (SOA) components.
• Architected model-risk management infrastructures using IBM Cognos /Data Stage, implementing automated data lineage, audit trails, and validation rules to satisfy Federal Reserve and OCC regulatory mandates.
• Deployed real-time stream processing and database analytics using IBM InfoSphere Streams and DB2 analytics to detect reporting variances and transactional anomalies, reducing financial audit cycle times by 25%.

Sr. Manager – Data Architecture & Systems Transformation at ACCENTURE LLC (2006-01 – 2009-12)

• Led technical proposal authoring, staffing model development, and estimation for major financial services transformations, securing multi-million-dollar implementation workstreams.
• Led data architecture teams across retail and commercial banking engagements, integrating IBM z/OS (COBOL, CICS) core banking transactions into enterprise relational data warehouses (Oracle, Teradata, SQL Server).
• Transitioned monolithic transaction layers to decoupled architectures using WebSphere MQ and ESB frameworks.