Sitarama Kumar Kusumanchi Venkatasai (Venkat)
About Sitarama Kumar Kusumanchi Venkatasai (Venkat)
Sitarama Kumar Kusumanchi Venkatasai, commonly known as Venkat, serves as the Vice President of Data Engineering at State Auto Insurance, where he has implemented significant cost reductions and improved data management processes. He has a strong educational background, including degrees from Andhra University and Stanford University, and has held various leadership roles in data engineering across multiple organizations.
Current Role at State Auto Insurance
Currently, Sitarama Kumar Kusumanchi Venkatasai serves as the Vice President of Data Engineering at State Auto Insurance. He has held this position since 2021 and operates within the Columbus, Ohio Metropolitan Area. In this role, he has implemented significant data engineering initiatives, including a cloud-based data lake solution that reduced operational costs by 75% by decommissioning redundant legacy data platforms. He also leads efforts to integrate multiple data sources into a new big data platform.
Previous Experience at CSAA Insurance Group
Before joining State Auto Insurance, Venkatasai worked at CSAA Insurance Group as a Senior Manager from 2014 to 2018 in Glendale, Arizona. During his tenure, he focused on managing data operations and achieved a notable reduction in annual RUN costs by 45%. His contributions included enhancing technology stacks to improve the speed of generating month-end financials by 90%.
Education and Expertise
Venkatasai has a strong educational background in computer science and business leadership. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Andhra University from 1993 to 1996 and a Master in Computer Applications from the same university from 1996 to 1999. He furthered his education at Stanford University Graduate School of Business, completing an Executive Leadership Development program in 2021.
Career Development and Mentorship
Throughout his career, Venkatasai has emphasized the importance of training and mentorship. At State Auto Insurance, he has implemented a 3E concept—Educate, Empower, and Elevate—to train and mentor internal data team members. He has also partnered with various vendor organizations to establish a geographically diverse team for data lake RUN/Build activities.
Significant Contributions to Data Engineering
Venkatasai has made significant contributions to data engineering at State Auto Insurance, including the development of a homegrown Master Data Management (MDM) solution for Golden Record creation. He led the integration of 85 data sources into a new big data platform and has plans to incorporate an additional 50 sources, demonstrating his commitment to enhancing data management capabilities.