Venkata Duvvuri is the Director of data science at Oracle specializing in machine learning and data science. Venkata is the leader of results-oriented data science, business, web, and marketing analytics with over 10 years of experience in data science, business analytics, digital media analytics, and web marketing optimization. Besides Oracle, he is also an adjunct faculty member at Northeastern University teaching data analytics and machine learning in his free time. In addition, he serves as the Board of Data Science Advisors at a couple of startups, namely CIPIO and AIClub. Venkata also has over 10 years of software engineering experience and an MBA degree from the University of California. He holds a master's in computer science from the University of Massachusetts. He is currently pursuing his doctorate at Purdue University in the Department of Technology Leadership and Innovation.

Venkata admitted that he is fortunate to experience management of onshore and offshore teams as well as to gain leadership experience ranging from different roles from the Director to the Manager at Fortune 100 companies including marketing agencies. This molded him into a cross-functional leader and subject matter expert in machine learning. He had the opportunity to drive improvements in business and online marketing outcomes to the tunes of several million dollars at Oracle, eBay (triad retail media), Conversant (alliance data), AT&T (cricket wireless) and crunch several terabytes of data at Apple Corporation.

At Oracle, Venkata has innovated several AI features in CX marketing products like Responsys and Eloqua. As a result, he has filed 8+ patents and published 3 papers in reputed conferences in ACM and Springer.

Experiences that Shaped Him as Leader

Venkata explained that during his early career, not being able to relate technology to business was a key problem. He was always an application-oriented engineer ready to meet business needs. Eventually, he learned the craft, and thereby, he additionally excelled in a graduate business degree at UC Davis and got elected to the Beta Gamma Sigma society due to academic excellence. After completing his MBA, Venkata changed into analytics and focused on marketing applications. But once again initially he found marketing to be more of an art, and his mission was to change it to a science.

The right mix of marketing applications helped Venkata explore verticals like retail and gaming. Ultimately, he found the Oracle CX marketing to be satisfying, as he could now solve for all verticals' needs. Now, the challenge for him as a leader is to innovate quickly as the AI space is moving along briskly.

Hallmarks for Every Data Science Leader

According to Venkata, data science is part research and part engineering. Merging the two is a challenge for every data science leader. The talent is also isolated in disparate buckets, but nowadays with the explosion of data science programs, the market gap between the supply of data scientists and openings is narrowing. Hence, the leaders should not shy away from data science initiatives.

Fundamental Innovation is the Key to Success

"Innovation can be either fundamental or applied" is what Venkata believes. Venkata admitted that he has always focused on applied research i.e. making fundamental innovation count in the real world. This gave him thrills and he enjoyed when the customer's experience was enhanced. Secondly, fundamental technologies are ever-changing. Hence, Venkata feels that there is always an opportunity for more improvement in any field due to AI. The world is in an explosive AI growth phase and the moon is the next stop for AI humanoids.

Harnessing the Most Out of Disruptive Technologies

For Venkata, AI/ML is the key to mining tremendous data that is getting generated every second. "To look at it from my perspective, since 2013, I've been a leader and Director at several marketing analytics organizations. That's when I noticed that the pace of innovation is ever-changing. Earlier consumers were skeptical of AI, but now it's embedded every day in their lives. Leadership has also changed I that they now see the needs of the Chief Data Scientist or Chief Data Officer at par with Chief Operators. So, the sky is the limit for any leader to increase their contributions", he added.

Venkata asserted that Oracle has come up with a CX marketing solution that is available to launch cross-channel marketing programs and unify all prospect and customer marketing signals in a single view. By bringing together human, machine, and domain data, digital subscription organizations can better understand their subscribers, enhance subscriber experiences and grow revenue. Therefore, Venkata believes that making the utmost use of disruptive technologies would yield extreme benefits in all sectors.

The Future of SaaS and Communications

Venkata stated, "Oracle is a leader in marketing cloud. Its leadership is unfettered despite competition. The Oracle SaaS cloud industry will make the jobs of marketers even more efficient. Gone will be days when emails, SMS, and communications will be treated as spam. They will be efficient, personalized, and to the point."

Words of Wisdom to the Budding Leaders

Venkata breaks the stigma of learning by quoting "Continuous learning is the key to success. The human brain grows until 39 years old. So why stop learning at 21?". He says that it's much easier to learn from many quality programs offered at throwaway prices. He has advised emerging leaders to take advantage of this. He says, "Try and try till you succeed. Luck only favors the brave. So, take your chances and jump into this field with vigor." He has also claimed that AI enthusiasts should also take time to enjoy life as well. It's short and one must make the best of it. He encourages the new leaders by saying, "You never know what you might be called on to do next. AI/ML skills will help you in your next journey, possibly to a distant planet."