Dream Sports ropes in Novartis’ Anantha Sundararajan as chief data officer

Mumbai-based fantasy sports firm Dream Sports that own various brands as Dream11, FanCode, and DreamSetGo, and more, has hired Anantha Sundararajan as its chief data officer (CDO). 

Sundararajan joins Dream Sports from Swiss-American multinational pharmaceutical corporation Novartis, and will be responsible for leading areas like fan experience, engagement and trust, using artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ ML), data science,  decision science and data engineering for Dream Sports’ growing user base of 140 Million sports fans across all its portfolio companies. 

Sundararajan brings close to 25 years of experience spanning both academic and corporate professions, giving worked in the AI and Data Science space across diverse industries such as aerospace, banking, e-commerce and pharma. 

Earlier, at Novartis, he has led innovations in areas such as research, drug discovery and development, portfolio optimisation, operations, drug launch, brand strategy and marketing using data science and artificial intelligence (AI). 

For the new job, Sundararajan will be based in Mumbai and will report to Harsh Jain, CEO and Co-founder, Dream11 and Dream Sports. Jain said, “As a pure-play sports tech company, where data drives all our decisions, we are delighted to have Anantha onboard to formulate and drive our AI and Data vision to lead innovations for superior and personalised fan engagement.” 

Sundararajan holds a doctorate and masters (MS) in industrial engineering and mathematics from Purdue University, USA. He further added, “This is a very exciting time for the sports technology sector in India, where companies like Dream Sports with their data-centric approach offer a differentiated fan experience to make sports better.”