Data-driven technology executive who built a global information and data organisation from the ground up — establishing enterprise data governance, AI-powered operations, and BI capabilities underpinning $100M+ in annual revenue across 8 international markets.
I'm a technology executive based in Sydney, Australia, with a career spanning four continents and industries from telecom to retail to higher education. My speciality is taking organisations from zero data maturity to enterprise-grade — building the teams, platforms, governance, and culture needed to make data a genuine competitive advantage.
At Love to Dream, I was recruited as the founding member of the technology function and built everything from scratch — a unified data platform integrating 22 sources, production GenAI features, an AI agentic workforce that transformed operational efficiency through intelligent automation, and a Master Data Management strategy spanning 8 global subsidiaries. The result: technology costs that are a fraction of industry benchmarks.
Before that, I led data strategy at Coles ($40B+ revenue), built enterprise systems at Monash University, and managed 30+ engineers across 5 countries at Amdocs serving 100M+ telecom subscribers.
I hold a Master of Data Science from Monash University and certifications in Databricks, Azure, AWS, and Power BI. I'm particularly passionate about the intersection of AI, data governance, and business strategy — and I believe the best CIOs and CDOs are those who can present a data investment case to the board as fluently as they can design a data pipeline.
Key outcomes from building and scaling global technology operations.
Selected projects demonstrating the intersection of data strategy and commercial outcomes.
Inherited a company with no data infrastructure, no reporting, and all decisions made on gut feel. Designed and built the entire data platform from scratch, integrating 22 disparate sources (NetSuite, Shopify, logistics, marketing) into a unified Databricks lakehouse. Delivered 135+ automated reports and launched a Power BI Champions program that achieved 100% BI adoption across all business functions — from the CEO to warehouse managers.
Identified that 67% of the team's effort was spent on repetitive tasks — ERP customisation, data pipeline maintenance, financial reporting, and routine development. Designed and deployed AI agents using OpenAI, LangChain, and custom agentic frameworks to automate these workflows. Dramatically increased output quality and velocity while reducing manual effort across the organisation. Also shipped production GenAI features (product-fit Q&A, natural language analytics) with CEO-endorsed rollout.
The company was paying $300K/year for Workato as its integration platform — a disproportionate cost for a mid-market business. Evaluated build vs. buy options and designed a proprietary iPaaS solution using Python, Airflow, and serverless functions. Reduced annual integration costs to under $15K while increasing reliability and coverage across 8 markets. Additionally negotiated $350K+ in vendor credits and achieved 55% savings across all technology contracts.
With 8 international subsidiaries, 22 data sources, and no unified data model, the business had no single source of truth. Architected an enterprise MDM strategy that standardised product, customer, and financial data across all systems. Established data governance policies, PCI-DSS compliance for global payments, and GDPR controls for EU markets. This foundation enabled the financial analysis dashboards and self-service BI that now drive board-level decision-making.
A decade of building, scaling, and transforming technology organisations.
Open to CIO, CDO, and CTO opportunities across Australia and globally.
Akshay@AkshaySapra.com