Neustar Names Walmart's Venkat Achanta as Chief Data, Analytics Officer

Information services provider Neustar announced today that data science expert Venkat Achanta is its new chief data and analytics officer. In the newly created role, he will be responsible for developing Neustar's authoritative identity and attribution platform to enhance customer experiences. Mr. Achanta has more than 20 years of experience in data science, analytics and enterprise information management. He worked as Walmart's chief data officer since 2014, where he handled all of the data and analytics delivery platforms and improved customer experiences. He previously served as senior VP and global head of analytics and big data at AIG, VP-Enterprise Data Services at Capital One and VP-Global Product Development at Experian. "We're so lucky to have him," said Steven Wolfe Pereira, chief marketing and communications officer. "There's a true battle for finding incredible data science talent." "We want a real thought leader that can combine all the areas of the company," he said. "We deal with marketing, security, telecomm and financial services. It was designed with Venkat's expertise and experience [in mind]. It's a great match." Mr. Achanta will report to the company's president and CEO Lisa Hook in San Francisco. "Today there are more devices than people connected to the internet," said Ms. Hook in a press release. "From managing the complex scale of data in the retail industry to intelligently navigating the sophisticated data security concerns in the financial services industry, Venkat's enterprise-class expertise makes him uniquely qualified to lead Neustar's data science innovations that will help our clients and partners." "We're just at the beginning of the connected world and I'm thrilled to be at Neustar, a company that will play a critical role in helping drive the connected world forward," Mr. Achanta said. "We need to move beyond buzzwords like 'Big Data.' What clients need are better insights, better context and better visibility across all connections to make better business decisions." The company announced last month that it would split Neustar into two publicly traded companies: one focused on call-routing services for telecom carriers and another for information services. Neustar's chief financial officer Paul Lalljie will become the president and CEO of the call-routing company while Ms. Hook will lead the information services company under her current title. Neustar has more than 12,000 clients around the world and generates about 2.5 quadrillion bits of data every day. Last year, it had $470 million in revenue from its marketing, security and data services business and $580 million in revenue from real-time numbering and routing services.

Neustar Names Walmart's Venkat Achanta as Chief Data, Analytics Officer

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