# Pradeep Kanagaraj

**VP, Operations & Strategy** — San Francisco, CA, United States

> Builder-operator who's scaled AI, software, and technology platforms from zero to hyper-growth across Amazon, Peloton, Aurora, Cruise, and Mendel.ai → Ensemble Health Partners. I specialize in building the operating systems that turn ambitious vision into disciplined execution: planning frameworks, performance systems, global team structures, and the cross-functional connective tissue that keeps fast-moving orgs accountable. From negotiating a $250M cloud contract at Aurora to scaling a 150-person global AI team at Mendel, I operate at the intersection of strategy, people, and execution. Forbes Contributor | Ex-Amazon, Peloton, Aurora, Cruise | VP, AI Strategy & Operations @ Ensemble Health Partners.

Career Archetype: **Junction Navigator** (HE-DG) — One of the first Junction Navigators on Saywise

## Links

- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/pradeepreddiar

## Experience

### VP, Operations & Strategy, Ensemble Health Partners (2025-07 – present)
San Francisco Bay Area · ✨ Operational and strategic partner to the Chief AI Officer, serving as the COO of Ensemble's Global AI Innovation Center across the U.S., Egypt, and India — driving end-to-end strategy, operations, and execution to accelerate Ensemble's AI-driven transformation. 🔄 Led post-acquisition integration of Mendel's talent, data infrastructure, and AI assets into Ensemble, accelerating innovation and revenue growth. 🔗 Serve as the primary interface between Ensemble's AI Innovation Center and core enterprise functions — HR, Finance, Legal, IT, Security, and Vendor Management — ensuring seamless global operations across the US, Egypt, and India with strong fiscal discipline and regulatory compliance. 🤖 Drive strategic planning and execution for deploying AI solutions across Ensemble's business units, aligning global research and engineering efforts to enterprise priorities and operational goals. 🚀 Serve as the Operational General Manager for Mendel Egypt, overseeing 100+ professionals in AI data labeling, clinical informatics, and knowledge graph development to build high-quality data assets powering enterprise AI models. 🌍 Designed and implemented a global talent model positioning Egypt as a cost-effective, high-quality AI data hub. ⚙️ Deployed AI agents and computer-use automations across recruiting, program management, and operational workflows — reducing candidate outreach costs from $55+/hr to $0.07/contact, achieving 93–96% cost savings and becoming the basis of a published Forbes article.

### VP, Operations & Strategy (Acquired), Mendel.ai (2022-12 – 2025-07)
San Francisco Bay Area · 🏗️ Designed and institutionalized the Mendel Operating System — defining meeting cadences, executive dashboards, decision frameworks, and cross-functional review structures that became the operational backbone for 150+ employees. 🎯 Created the Qualume Score framework (featured in Forbes) — a performance measurement system balancing quality and volume that improved team productivity from <30% to >100% and boosted retention by 20%. 📈 Implemented OKiR and OKR frameworks (featured in Forbes), increasing goal attainment by 30% and establishing quarterly planning rituals aligned to annual and long-range milestones. 💰 Led headcount allocation and workforce planning across global teams; negotiated $2.5M in procurement savings through financial modeling and vendor optimization. 🌍 Scaled the global AI Innovation Center across the US & Egypt— growing the organization from 61 to 150+ employees while maintaining <3% turnover and improving employee satisfaction by 13%. 🔐 Drove SOC 2 Type 2 certification and led post-acquisition integration of Mendel into Ensemble, spanning HR, Finance, Legal, IT, and Security.

### Director, Operations, Strategy & Planning, Peloton Interactive (2021-09 – 2022-11)
San Francisco Bay Area · 🚴 Served as Chief of Staff to the CTO, providing operational and strategic support to an 800+ person Technology organization with a $300M+ annual budget. 📊 Built rhythm-of-business processes, annual planning cadences, and organizational review structures for the CTO's office — directly improving 2022 Engagement Survey scores by 11% (from 68% to 79%). 💰 Led cross-functional headcount and budget initiatives as part of Peloton's restructuring committee, delivering $50M in cost savings while maintaining team alignment during a critical company transition. 🎯 Introduced micro P&Ls and OKR alignment across product groups, increasing accountability and measurable goal attainment across the Technology org. 🏆 Designed and launched the Technology Impact Awards and DEI programs, achieving 88% self-ID participation and 14% higher management engagement scores.

### Technology Operations, Aurora (2019-10 – 2021-09)
San Francisco Bay Area · ☁️ Negotiated a $250M, three-year cloud platform contract 55% below GCP list rates and led Aurora's full infrastructure migration from Google Cloud to AWS, delivering $50M+ in savings. 🚗 Managed quarterly OKRs for Technology Platform teams, improving key result attainment by 20% and delivering the Data & Machine Learning Platform powering Aurora's autonomous trucking systems. 📦 Drove data retention, BI platform, and data democratization policies — aligning infrastructure investments to evolving research and engineering priorities across a rapidly scaling org.

### Lead Technical Program Manager, Cruise (2018-08 – 2019-10)
San Francisco Bay Area · 🤖 Managed a team of TPMs that led programs for large-scale autonomous vehicle data platforms handling petabytes of sensor and simulation data; directed OKRs for 150+ data engineers, improving delivery cycle times and ROI. 🧑‍💻 Co-founded the Cruise Mentorship Program, achieving 40% company-wide participation and a 90/100 satisfaction score; improved hiring funnel efficiency by cutting time-to-hire by 8 days and increasing offer acceptance by 20%.

### Principal Technical Program Manager, Coupang (2017-01 – 2018-08)
Greater Seattle Area · 🛒 Principal TPM at Coupang (2016–2018): Led a global technical program management team of 5 TPMs for South Korea's largest e-commerce platform during hypergrowth — overseeing delivery infrastructure programs at massive scale.

### Engineering & Technical Program Management Roles, Amazon (2009-10 – 2016-12)
Greater Seattle Area · ☁️ Senior TPM, Amazon Wishlist (2014–2016) | TPM, Amazon Web Services (2012–2014) | Data Engineer, Amazon Kindle (2009–2012): Progressive technical and program leadership spanning cloud infrastructure, consumer products, and data engineering across Amazon's most critical platforms.

## Education

### B.tech in Information Technology and Management, Shanmugha Arts, Science, Technology and Research Academy (2001-01 – 2005-01)
Information Technology and Management

## Skills

Change Management, AI/ML Strategy, Business Transformation, Business Process Management, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Organizational Design, P&L Management, Operations Management, Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), Organizational Leadership, Business Analysis, Technical Program Management, Cloud Computing, Software Engineering, Agile Methodologies, Scalability, Requirements Analysis, Strategic Communications, Project Management Office (PMO), Project Management, Business Strategy, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Leadership, Management, Strategic Thinking, Talent Management, Accountability, Organizational Culture, Career Management, IT Leadership, Delegation, Executive Leadership, Influence Others, Business Innovation, Business Risk, Strategic Planning

## Credentials

- **Balancing Innovation and Risk** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-09)
- **Building Accountability into Your Culture** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-09)
- **Jeff Dyer on Innovation** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-09)
- **Agile Software Development: Creating an Agile Culture** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-08)
- **Creating a Product-Centric Organization** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-08)
- **Cultivating a Growth Mindset** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-08)
- **Product Management: Building a Product Roadmap** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-08)
- **Executive Leadership** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-07)
- **Influencing Others** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-07)
- **Strategic Thinking** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-07)
- **Talent Management** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-07)
- **Conflict Resolution Foundations** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-06)
- **Delegating Tasks** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-06)
- **Delivering Bad News Effectively** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-06)
- **DevOps Foundations** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-06)
- **Goal Setting: Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-06)
- **Leadership in Tech** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-06)
- **Managing Stress** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-06)
- **Project Portfolio Management Foundations** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-06)
- **Setting Up a PMO** — LinkedIn (issued 2020-06)

## AI Fluency

- **Claude** (https://claude.ai)
- **ChatGPT** (https://chatgpt.com)
- **xAI Grok**

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Source: https://saywise.com/pradeep (last modified 2026-10-06T03:34:37.588Z)