Jean Luc Godard, French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic, once said, “Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world.” Two and a half hours of a whole new world. No judgements of possibilities or impossibilities. No thoughts about real life. The...
People and Culture
Recent Articles
AI in the gameplan
When Avinash Singh, a 24-year-old debutant with no domestic cricket experience, came up in the player auctions of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 at a base price of Rs 20 lakh, it was a slight surprise. And when he was bought by the Royal Challengers Bangalore...
Karunakaran Neelakandan joins Crayon Data as Vice President of Engineering
Karunakaran Neelakandan has joined Crayon Data as VP of Engineering. He sports a rich and global experience of 26 years, in big data engineering/analytics, graphics processing units, machine learning, and data warehouse and business intelligence, across various...
#TalentedTangrams: Life lessons from photorealism
At some point in every school’s art class, students are asked to draw a basket of fruit. I was in the seventh grade when my teacher assigned this to us. What started out as a mindless task became an exercise in observing detail. I think I did a pretty good job for a...
Intuition vs Data: The tech distribution tussle
Imagine dropping millions of dollars on an enterprise solution only to find out that it really doesn’t solve the problem. That’s the risk businesses face, especially when it comes to tech products. Most often, there’s no comprehensive way to test the fit before...
Crayon Data’s ode to Gordon Moore
Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel Corporation, and one of the most influential figures in the history of computing, passed on March 24, 2023. His groundbreaking observation, known as Moore's Law, predicted that the number of transistors on a microchip would double...
From codebreakers to innovators: Celebrating women in tech
Women’s History Month is a great time to reflect on inspiring women achievers. For generations, many have gone without being credited or applauded for their work. Recognition is the difference between Madame Marie Curie and Mileva Einstein-Maric. I would not be...
Unlock the Power of Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) for Enhanced Customer Experience
2023 is the year of Customer Experience (CX). 86% of customers say they would pay a premium to brands that offer a fabulous experience. Companies with an annual revenue of 1 Bn USD can earn an added 700 Mn USD within three years of investing in CX. There’s no doubt...
Aarti Ramakrishnan on celebrating progress and breaking barriers
Date: March 2023 Source: Middle East News 247 For International Women's Day, women leaders from across industries shared their thoughts with the Middle East media. While there are plenty of reasons to celebrate how far we've come, they also pointed out the barriers...
Crayon Lighthouse: The future of work, workplace culture, and talent engagement with Priti Shetty
From home offices to hybrid model to the gig economy, the idea of ‘work’ has evolved considerably over the past few years. Priti Shetty, the Chief People and Culture Officer at WeWork, rightly summarises the change in two sentences, “Flexibility is no longer a...
AI for social good: tech solutions that change lives
Would you live as an undocumented person for three months? Lucia Gallardo, Founder & CEO of Emerge, did just that. Her aim: to understand the problems they face. For context, Emerge is a tech lab that works at the convergence of sustainable development and social...
Prashanth Kale joins Crayon Data as Director of Marketing
Prashanth Kale has joined Crayon Data to lead the global marketing team. He is an award-winning marketing director with 16+ years of leadership experience in B2B marketing in high-tech, enterprise SaaS, and AI. An alumnus of EDHEC Business School (France), he is adept...
#TalentedTangrams: Out of the ‘Cube’icle with Naveen V
At some point in time, every child would have received a Rubik’s Cube as a gift. Or they might have been fascinated by the challenge and made their parents buy one for them. I was in the third category: my interest was flamed by criticism. When I was in the 12th...
Why programmers need to up their coding skills
In the words of track and field star Kim Collins, “Strive for continuous improvement, instead of perfection.” This is true in the case of mastering coding skills as well. It is critical for programmers to improve their abilities in this era of constant changes in the...
Aarti Ramakrishnan on the Unofficial Women in Power List for Southeast Asia’s tech community
Getting more women in power is still a work in progress. But Maria Li, Chief Operating Officer at Tech in Asia, is tired of hearing, "I couldn't think of any women for my team/event/board." This was the genesis for the Unofficial Women in Power List, featuring leaders...
Inside the world of SaaS sales and partnerships with Kunal Sharma
‘Partnerships’ has been quite the buzzword in SaaS over the past couple of years. It is imperative to scaling business, and according to Kunal Sharma of Rocketium, “The bigger goal of partnerships is to create an ecosystem.” The Head of Sales at Rocketium joined the...
Peter Marini joins Crayon Data as Vice President, Sales (APAC)
Peter Marini has joined Crayon Data to lead and drive sales in the Asia Pacific region. He comes with more than two decades of experience in tech sales in both mature and emerging markets. Throughout his career, he has helped organizations overcome business...
The secret ingredient for a successful career with Vijay Rajagopal
“Where do you want to be five years down the line in your career?” It’s a question we’re often asked as part of our career progression chats and interviews. However, Vijay Rajagopal does not see the merit in this query. According to him, “There’s a misconception that...
Eight reasons to join the Crayon Box
What do I say when a potential Crayon asks, "What makes your employer different from the rest?" As a Talent Ambassador at Crayon Data, such questions get me super excited. Here are my go-to points: We have a team with 10+ decades of collective industry expertise....
Nagesh Jaladi joins Crayon Data as Vice President, Merchant Solutions
Nagesh Jaladi has joined Crayon Data to lead and drive maya.ai Bazaar - the merchant solutions platform. Nagesh comes with 15+ years of experience across Mastercard, Google and AT Kearney. An alumnus of Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business, he...
Crayon Spotlight: Women who #BreakTheBias
In 2022, the International Women’s Day theme asked us to “Imagine a gender equal world. A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination.” For many, it is a distant dream. And at Crayon, we’ve realized that neutralizing inherent gender biases is not...
Why these women in tech love Crayon Data!
Why is Crayon a great place to work? We won't tell you. But these Crayons will. Scroll down to find out why they chose to work with us. And what keeps them here! Malvika Elango, Customer Success Manager Crayons live and breathe...
Engineering products with passion: Vinayak Ganapuram on his role at Crayon
My curiosity towards building products started when I first began working on Encarta (a digital multimedia encyclopedia) at Microsoft. I wanted to know how products were conceived, built, deployed, managed, serviced, scaled. I essentially wanted to be part of the...
Probability, surprises, and entropy in data science
Wordle and data science don’t seem to have much in common. Find out why there’s more than meets the eye. This is the second blog in a three-part series. Read the first part here. Before we understand how entropy affects Wordle, we need to grasp the basics. What...
Life in 2079: How AI could change everyday life
Humanity has always had a predilection for prediction. Decades ago, people imagined what life would look like in the 2020s. Some suggested that roadways would be replaced by pneumatic tubes. One issue of Popular Mechanics dreamed up a smart dining table that would...
Crayon Data’s playbook to break the bias
What are the biases I've faced as a result of my gender? I've thought about this at different stages of my life. While I've been fortunate to have a supportive and progressive family, very often I've pushed against the biases of the external world. When I was in...
A data science approach to solving Wordle
Wordle has taken the world (and Crayon Data) by storm. I’m not an expert in English vocabulary. But I am good with data science! And so, I approached the problem of solving Wordle using my expertise. With due credit to 3Blue1Brown for the inspiration. How do...
Ahmet Can Sezgin joins Crayon Data as Sales Leader for Middle East and Africa
Ahmet Can Sezgin has joined Crayon Data to lead and drive Sales in the Middle East and Africa region. Ahmet comes with over 15 years of experience in defining and directing sales and business development strategies. He is an Industrial Engineer and graduate of Koc...
Naveen S Pillai joins Crayon Data as Vice President – Human Resources
Naveen S Pillai has joined Crayon Data as Vice President – Human Resources. In his new role, he will lead our People Team as they drive Crayon to be a diverse, multi-cultural, values-led, and high-performance environment. Naveen comes with over 20 years of HR...
Santiago Duro Tomas joins Crayon Data as VP of Program Management/Engagement
Santiago Duro Tomas has joined Crayon Data to nurture, lead, and drive client relationships in the Middle East. Santiago is an accomplished executive with over two decades of experience across strategy, operations, and technology. He has managed established...
Vinayak Ganapuram joins Crayon Data as Vice President, Engineering
Vinayak Ganapuram has joined Crayon Data to lead and drive the engineering function. Vinayak is a self-taught programmer who is passionate in creating Cloud scalable, performant products that delight users. He is a seasoned hands-on Tech Leader with proven track...
Bringing the best out of data with product data manager Shankar Ganesh
Data is like raw material. You need to be able to put it onto the right production line so that the manufacturing can take place without any disruption. That’s where a product data manager like me comes in. I gauge the data requirements and how we can use it in...
Rishad Tobaccowala on how to re-invent marketing, re-think organizations and build a global empire
“Whether we like it or not, gravity exists. Gravity doesn't care if we tweet about it, agree, or disagree that it exists. Facts and data are like gravity,” says Rishad Tobaccowala. The author...
#CrayonYearbook2021: Looking back with gratitude
It's time for the #CrayonYearbook! Thanks to our amazing Crayons, we've seen achievements aplenty in 2021. As the year winds down, we count down our top 10 moments. #10 Around the world with maya.ai Despite several borders still being shut, Crayon managed to go places...
Where left and right brain meet: Priyanshu Mishra on product managers
It took me a while to get my first job. The industry was still reeling after the 2008 financial crash. I found a role in strategy consulting, and in 18 months, I worked on about 14 different projects. These were spread across education, health care,...
Talking endurance and resilience with Thaddeus Lawrence
What is more important: the journey, or the destination? For Thaddeus Lawrence, it is the company that matters most. “Because the quality of our lives is determined by the quality of our relationships. All your high and wins to lows and desperate...
Experimenting allows you to grow fast or fail fast: Dexter Zhuang
William Blake said, “The true method of knowledge is experiment.” And product veteran Dexter Zhuang strongly believes this. “Experimenting allows you to grow fast or fail fast. Considering the success rate of experiments is 1-4%, either way,...
Making things happen: Devaki Gopalan on the inner workings of a PMO
My career started in 1999, a freshly minted graduate from BITS Pilani. And, like most eager beavers wanting to prove themselves, I was ready to rule the world! My journey started as an SAP developer. I started right at the bottom, working my way up to becoming a...
Meet the Crayon Captains!
"Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality." In our series, #CrayonCaptains, you'll meet the leaders who take our vision and help their teams bring it to life!
Life and business lessons from Jane Egerton-Idehen
Jane Egerton-Idehen, the Head of Sales Middle East & Africa at Meta (formerly Facebook), has been on a lifelong quest, seeking balance between professional and personal success. She spoke about much of it in Crayon's Lighthouse Fireside Chat series a few months...
From gaming to platform engineering, Sundara Raghavan’s journey
Like almost every other computer science graduate in the late 2000s, I started out as a Java software developer. From the beginning of my career, I’ve enjoyed experimenting with and adapting to new tech. I also had an innate curiosity about building new tech products...
The art of simple tech with solutions architect Ragunath Venkatraman
Before we talk about anything else: who exactly is a solutions architect? Quoting H.L. Mencken, "For every complex problem, there's a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." Giving a simple solution to a complex problem has never been a reality. A problem can...
The accidental data scientist – Kanimozhi U
I never set out to be a data scientist. After a B Tech in information technology and ME in computer science, I started working on my PhD. My initial idea was to do research on point-of-care diagnostics for osteoporosis. I then switched to breast cancer prognosis and...
From Zero to Nine: the culture journey @ Crayon
When you start a company, you pretty much have a blank slate. You have to think about the picture you want to create on it. You have the opportunity to decide what you want to bring people...
Personalize to retain your customers: Andrew Michael on tackling churn
Andrew Michael is no stranger to the startup game. He founded three companies, which created four products. “But I had to sell them for peanuts, since churn and retention was a killer for those products,” he said. This led to an almost obsessive quest to find out...
Jane Egerton-Idehen on being present, leading with uncertainty and overcoming career fears
(Clockwise from left) Vaibbhav Kinkar of Crayon Data, Jane Egerton-Idehen and the Crayon Box in Chennai Growing up in the underprivileged section of Lagos, Nigeria, young Jane Egerton-Idehen had a dream. In it, she wore a white pantsuit and stood in...
How to live and breathe your mission: Soundarya M on her Crayon experience
Having been an entrepreneur, I can tell you that the 'why' and 'what' are the easiest parts to develop in a company’s mission statement. The 'how' is the stepsister that never gets centerstage in most workplaces. Unless something goes sideways, that is. While...
The Hippocratic Oath for product managers
On October 27, 2012, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg emailed his then director of product development. He said, "I just can't think of any instances where data has leaked from developer to developer and caused a real issue for us.” If Zuckerberg...
Good design is at the heart of everything around us: Kaus Manjita
The CEO and founder of Mason, Kaus Manjita, talked design, tech and entrepreneurship in Crayon Data’s Lighthouse Fireside Chat Kaus in conversation with Crayon Data After spending over 16 years in ecommerce, Kausambi aka Kaus Manjita knows a thing or two...
Where banking and AI meet the written word: Vidhyashankar Sriram on his new role at Crayon
I come from a liberal literary background. My father was the President of Alliance Française of Madras for several years, a double Chevalier who translated books from French to Tamil. That’s where I got my love for the...