Publicis.Sapient boosts digital business transformation capability with global engineering executive hires

Publicis.Sapient hired Tilak Doddapaneni and Rakesh Ravuri boosting digital business transformation by pivoting engineering and performance.

Publicis.Sapient announced two key executive appointments from global retail and technology giants Tesco and Amazon, as it grows its capability to help clients build businesses of the future.

Tilak Doddapaneni has been hired into the newly created position of Global Head of Engineering at Publicis.Sapient – joining from Tesco, where he was Online Engineering Director. Doddapaneni will join the Publicis.Sapient global leadership team and report directly to Nigel Vaz, Publicis Groupe Lead for Digital Business Transformation and CEO of Publicis.Sapient EMEA and APAC.

Rakesh Ravuri, who has held a succession of senior engineering roles at Amazon, will join as Chief Technology Officer for programming languages and cloud and Global Head of Engineering for Retail. He will play a key leadership role in Publicis.Sapient’s extensive operations in India. Ravuri will report to Doddapaneni. Both Doddapaneni and Ravuri are Sapient alumni.

Doddapaneni and Ravuri are proven change agents in taking organisations to the next level of performance in engineering and will be pivotal ingredients in Publicis.Sapient’s strategy to drive the market for digital business transformation services.

The key executive appointments come as Publicis.Sapient expands its product engineering capability, vital to digital business transformation and the ability to help clients transform their business and create exponential growth, increase efficiency and create better experiences – through the rapid development of products and services that consumers expect in a technology-enabled world.

In his new role, Doddapaneni will lead the entire technology delivery community across Publicis.Sapient globally. In addition to client success and engineering and delivery excellence, he will focus on the talent development, performance metrics, and breakthrough engineering practices required by digital business transformation clients in their modern test and learn environments.

In his time at Tesco, Doddapaneni built a modern online engineering team spanning India and the UK, leading it to successfully launch Tesco Direct and Tesco’s Marketplace, and rolling out a re-architected Grocery Home Shopping platform in the UK and international markets.

Ravuri, who joins Publicis.Sapient as one of the Chief Technology Officers and Global Head of Engineering for Retail, brings a wealth of knowledge in cloud platforms, service design and agile engineering gained as Director of Software Development at Amazon. Ravuri built the engineering team responsible for the software systems for Amazon’s new logistics business to launch ship.amazon, delivering millions of packages for its sellers.

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“I’m delighted that Tilak and Rakesh will be joining Publicis.Sapient on our journey to build our engineering capability as part of our product engineering approach to deliver digital business transformation for our clients. Tilak has exceptional pedigree as a senior leader driving transformational change for one of the world’s biggest retailers through an appreciation of the power that technology and engineering have, as well as an understanding of how to apply that in the evolution of product and experience. His wealth of experience makes him the right person to lead the implementation of our agile engineering model globally. Rakesh comes to us having recently successfully led the engineering team that developed Amazon delivery, one of the most significant revenue generating businesses for a global technology and retail leader. His experience and talent will be a huge boon to Publicis.Sapient clients and to the growth of our retail industry expertise and large-scale India operations,” said Nigel Vaz, CEO of Publicis.Sapient EMEA and APAC.

“As someone who is passionate about engineering and running large software systems, I am excited to return to Sapient, which continues to lead the way as a digital transformation company that uniquely combines strategy, experience and engineering disciplines to help clients reimagine and transform their businesses for a digital age. Building a company that has, develops and attracts world-class engineering talent is what has brought me back to Sapient,” said Tilak Doddapaneni.

“The industry is at an inflection point and technology has moved from support role to the driver’s seat. Sapient is right at the centre of this, with its focus on digital business transformation. I am excited to have a chance to play a leading role in the engineering transformation both for Sapient and its clients,” said Rakesh Ravuri.