Rakesh Kalra
Executive Director | Driving Cloud, Data & Platform Strategy | Gen-AI | Leading High-Impact Engineering Teams | Aligning Tech Roadmaps With Business Growth
- Role
- Executive Director at Wells Fargo
- Location
- Bengaluru, KA, IN
- LinkedIn followers
- 500 followers
About Rakesh Kalra
I am a strategic data and digital transformation leader with over 22 years of experience in driving measurable business performance improvements through analytics, cloud modernization, and enterprise data platforms.Currently, I serve as an Executive Director at Wells Fargo, where I lead data strategy for Marketing and Sales, ensuring alignment with enterprise goals and customer growth priorities. My expertise lies in modern data platforms and cloud technologies, including Azure, GCP, and Redshift, which enable me to deliver high-performance data solutions that are future-ready.Throughout my career, I have successfully spearheaded multi-year cloud transformation journeys, enhancing operational efficiency and data security while modernizing analytics ecosystems. I am recognized for my ability to motivate diverse teams and foster a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement. My deepunderstanding of data governance and quality management has allowed me to ensure regulatory alignment and build trusted data foundations that support data-driven decision-making.Key Achievements- Led and scaled over 300 global data engineering teams, delivering enterprise-grade platforms- Drove multi-year cloud migrations across GCP, Azure, and AWS, achieving significant operational improvements- Established comprehensive enterprise data governance, quality, and security frameworks- Automated over 60 manual processes, significantly accelerating delivery and reducing risk- Consolidated enterprise BI and reporting, enabling unified decision-making across the organization.
Experience
Executive Director
Aug 2023 — Present · Bengaluru, IN
Executive Director – Enterprise Data & Platforms- Defined and executed the group-wide data strategy, aligning product, architecture, and business roadmaps to unlock new revenue streams and operational efficiencies.- Partnered with global and regional leadership to scale data capabilities across multiple business units, increasing analytics adoption and self-service usage across the organization.- Governed fit‑for‑purpose architectures (cloud and on‑prem), standardizing on Azure, GCP, and modern data platforms to improve scalability, reliability, and cost transparency.- Delivered a enterprise data ecosystem that enabled a 360° customer view, driving measurable uplift in cross‑sell and upsell revenue across key product lines.- Led an Engineering Excellence agenda using DORA and platform adoption metrics (Harness, GitHub Action, Code Commit) to improve deployment frequency, reduce failures, and shorten lead time for changes.- Drove strategic initiatives to migrate workloads to Google Cloud, consolidate BI reporting, and implement data masking and controls, strengthening data security and simplifying regulatory compliance.- Established co‑located Agile teams and a culture of continuous improvement, increasing delivery throughput, reducing cycle times, and improving stakeholder NPS for data and analytics initiatives
Education
National Institute of Technology Karnataka
Bachelor of Technology - BTech, Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta
Global business management
2016 — 2017
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