University at Buffalo School of Management, The State University of New York

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Osmania University

I support the teams building our fast growing eCommerce business - merchandising strategy, site merchandising, search, business programs, fulfillment, data science and digital growth

Tractor Supply Company

Head - Digital Merchandising and Business Operations

Lead key enterprise business planning, execution and performance review cadences for the company - Enterprise Weekly Business Review, Sales and Ops Execution, Sales and Ops Planning 

Lead the data and technology driven transformation of Nordstrom's planning and data landscape - platforms for demand, supply, and operations planning 

Lead enterprise data analytics, data governance for a unified truth source for accelerated decision cycle time (finance, merchandising, supply chain, digital, operations)

Nordstrom

Vice President, Integrated Business Planning, Insights and Analytics

Reported to the CSCO and built retail industry leading, tech driven sales and operations planning business process and technology product for Sam’s Club Omnichannel -  physical warehouse clubs, eCommerce, drop ship vendor programs, ship from club, club pickup.
End to end planning - sales forecasting, labor planning, transportation planning, analytics.

Walmart

Sr. Director, Integrated Business Planning & Forecasting

- Established industry-leading demand forecasting and supply planning platforms, sales and operations planning for Walmart's $150B+ Food business, enhancing end-to-end supply chain flow for improved customer availability and sales.

- Formulated and executed an end-to-end fresh supply chain tech strategy, integrating IoT for harvest-to-shelf cold chain management and secured executive sponsorship for an end-to-end flow path optimization platform, ensuring maximum freshness in the flow of fresh produce from growers to customers.

Director, Supply Chain Planning and Forecasting

* Built and led global analytics platform team responsible for supporting strategy and optimization of multi billion dollar price investment strategy, resulting in strong comp sales growth for 3000 US stores. Earned 1 Point for Talking, 9 for Doing Award from company CEO.

* Analyzed massive competitive (Nielsen, IRI, NPD etc.) and internal pricing data, provided actionable competitive insights, and directed buyer decisions, setting new price gap goals for 100+ buyers to enable EDLP strategy.

* Drove common definition of EDLP principles and analytics to standardize pricing across regions using customer shopping behaviors, create long term customer loyalty and trust.

Director, Pricing Strategy and Data Science

* Created and directed analytics team of 48 tasked to provide customer data driven merchandising analytics solutions.

* Built assortment optimization solution based on customer behavior and loyalty for Walmart Neighborhood Markets using CPLEX optimization engine.

* Collaborated with Walmart Store Productivity team of 30 to provide layouts that optimize location and adjacencies of departments and categories using customer shopping patterns and genetic algorithms

* Customer insights driven private label strategy that increased sales growth

Sr. Manager, Merchandising, Marketing Data Science

- Constructed a member model, blending Sam's Club membership data with Nielsen assets, influencing real estate decisions for new clubs in optimal locations. Received Gold Award and Rookie of the Year Award.
- Played a pivotal role in the CEO's task force, analyzing member growth decline, and presented findings to senior management, leading to a strategic re-focus.

Nielsen

Senior Consultant - Merchandising and Marketing Data Science(Walmart)

Startup experience providing customer data based Assortment Optimization, Price Optimization, Marketing Insights.

Mu Sigma Inc.

Consultant, Merchandising and Marketing Data Science

Developed new software solutions with IBM Mainframes to facilitate SunTrust Bank’s merger strategy, adding $1.5B in deposits.

Nikhil Cherian