Bhushan Akerkar
Chief Information Officer | Hindalco Industries
Mr. Bhushan Akerkar currently holds the position of the Chief Information Officer of Hindalco Industries – the flagship company of the Aditya Birla group. Hindalco Industries is in the production of aluminium and copper and is $ 18 billion in revenue.
Mr. Akerkar has received his Bachelors degree in engineering from IIT BHU and a Masters degree from Clemson University USA. He is also a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA).
Mr. Akerkar has been working for the last 25 years in various roles. He has donned the hat of a CIO in companies such as AC Nielsen, Hindalco and L&T, as well has that of a systems integrator with Tata Consultancy Services, and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), which merged into Hewlett Packard (HP) more than a decade ago.
Being on both sides of the hedge, as a supply side person, and as a CIO he is very familiar with both the demand and supply side issues of IT.
His vast spectrum of experience includes software development in the field of Computer Aided Design, computer graphics, IT infrastructure such as networking, VSATS, Data Centre Build and Operations, design and operations of Network Operations Centre, and implementation of ERP in 4 companies. He has navigated from the core computer industry , to IT in service industry, construction and manufacturing.
In his role as a service provider he has managed 12500 servers, 40000 PCs, 800 data bases, 800 storage devices, 2000 networking circuits, ERP, Analytics software and about 1300 associates in ONE SINGLE ACCOUNT.
As early as 2005 much before the smart phone revolution he pioneered the usage of PDAs or hand held devices for data acquisition of consumer trends, readership data across 400 cities and 6000 villages. This project won him the PC Quest award and Express Computer Award for innovative use of technology.
His last employment was with Hindalco, which underwent a massive transformation and expansion, entailing an investment of Rs. 30,000+ crores in new Aluminium plants in MP and Odisha, wherein the output of aluminium tribbled. He has contributed to this transformation by deploying the state of the art Infrastructure, ERP systems, and other IT systems; many a times prior to commissioning of the new plants. This mammoth task has fetched Hindalco IT, 9 (nine) awards from various forums of industry forums.
Currently he has his own start up which specialises in the use of artificial intelligence in the field of technical analysis of stocks.
Mr. Akerkar has contributed articles in Data Quests and other leading computer magazines.
He enjoys reading historical novels, texts and listening to Indian Classical music.