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Ajinkya Apte

Open for opportunities

IT Leadership
Business Partnering
Delivery and Programme Management
DIgital eCommerce & Retail
Agile Transformation
Ajinkya Apte
Netherlands
Professional Status
Employed
Open to opportunities
About Me
I am a highly motivated senior servant leader with a strong belief in agility and an agile mindset. Currently, I lead the Commercial Platforms and Delivery at Imperial Brands PLC, where I manage the commercial technology vision, commercial IT portfolio, and product management. My role involves partnering with business units to drive innovation and deliver impactful IT solutions.

My career began at Persistent Systems Limited, where I developed corporate and technical skills by supporting international clients. I then joined Heineken’s International Graduate Program, gaining experience in IT strategy, projects, and operations. I later managed the Office 365 suite and service management for Europe, and led Agile transformation initiatives to enhance time to market and customer collaboration.

At Upfield, as Head of IT for South-West Europe, I aligned IT strategy with business priorities, driving global program execution and delivering impactful IT solutions. Throughout my career, I have demonstrated strategic thinking, business partnering, and a commitment to global delivery, fostering innovation and leading teams to meet evolving business needs.
Resume created on DoYouBuzz
Experiences
  • Driving the strategic vision, execution, and leadership of global commercial technology platforms and program delivery.
  • Shape and execute strategic IT roadmaps in collaboration with Sales, Trade, and Digital Marketing, ensuring technology investments drive measurable business value.
  • Define and lead the Product and Platform vision for B2B and B2C, aligning technology roadmaps with a three-year business strategy and enterprise priorities.
  • Oversee the global commercial IT portfolio, ensuring the successful delivery of scalable, high-impact solutions that meet evolving business needs.
  • Provide strategic leadership to architects, platform leads, and delivery teams across Product Development, Platform Implementation (Programs), DevOps, and Support.
  • Foster strong partnerships with strategic vendors such as Salesforce, commercetools, and Optimove, identifying and implementing the right solutions to drive competitive advantage.
  • Establish and govern agile methodologies, engineering standards, and delivery frameworks to optimize execution and ensure value-driven outcomes.
  • Lead and manage outsourcing partnerships, ensuring alignment with strategic objectives and effective execution of the commercial technology roadmap.
  • Advise and support the VP of IT Commerce in shaping a 3-5 year strategic vision for commercial IT, driving innovation and operational excellence.
  • I led the IT strategy and operations across seven markets (Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Cyprus) and three factories (Netherlands, Portugal, and Greece). I serve as a strategic business partner, ensuring alignment between IT and business priorities while driving the execution of global programs and delivering impactful IT solutions.
  • Oversee the IT strategy and service delivery across South West Europe, managing all IT operations for the markets and factories, and ensuring alignment with business objectives.
  • Act as the primary IT point of contact for business units, fostering strong relationships with four General Managers and three Factory Directors, ensuring that IT solutions effectively meet business needs.
  • Serve as the strategic liaison between the business and global IT transformation projects, supporting the seamless divestment of Upfield from Unilever and ensuring successful project execution.
  • Lead efforts to drive business innovation by leveraging technology to create value, working closely with leadership to identify and implement opportunities that enhance operational efficiency and business growth.
  • Manage business IT demands to ensure that all technology projects are delivered effectively, meeting business goals, and adding tangible value.
  • Contribute to central IT cost management and take responsibility for managing local IT costs, ensuring that budgets are optimized and aligned with business priorities.
  • Proactively identify opportunities to enhance IT services, continuously improving processes and ensuring IT solutions support the efficient and effective operation of the business.
  • Lead work stream to create agile delivery organisation
  • Do portfolio planning/Big room planning and help setup OKRs with Portfolio Managers
  • The set-up of the actual product team (including structure governance and Agile ways-of-working
  • Enabled Product Owner in Initiating, Preparing and Launching Product and Product teams
  • Set up escalation mechanism (e.g. sponsor)
  • Identity relevant budget lines and navigate budget governance to obtain ownership over this budget
  • Change management around adoption and transformation towards agility
  • Setting up to DevOps teams
  • Responsible for Application support service management for portfolio of 8 million
  • Lead Agile implementation project for ERP and BI/BO application support service for region and successfully decrease new development delivery time from 60 days to 20 days- Approx team size 20
  • Held Service reviews and acted on Pro-active & on- requests to European operating companies
  • Monitor supplier performance and liaise with supplier to ensure pain point are address and SLAs are green
  • Drive regional service improvement initiatives
  • Acted as a SPOC for escalation within Europe region for Application support and managed stakeholders in European Operating companies IT teams
  • Help drive negotiation with liaising with multiple senior stakeholder and with supplier to bring saving of 2mEUR
  • Was responsible for creating technology roadmap for Office 365 cloud solutions
  • Worked as an application manager for Microsoft collaboration platform (office 365 - Sharepoint OneDrive Teams Delve )
  • Managed continuous improvement projects to improve process and technology to enable people
  • Lead projects for system maintenance project( ERP and Non -ERP systems)- approx team size 10-15 FTE
  • Managed outsource team (5 FTe) to ensure delivery is made as per agreed SLA
  • "The IGP is built around three six-month assignments which are designed to provide intensive and contrasting learning experiences. This is quite a challenge for the individuals involved: every six months, they have to establish themselves in a new country, start a new job and embed themselves in a new team."
    "For the 2013 edition, 15 International Graduates have been selected out of more than 22.000 applications around the world"
  • Worked on various IT and non-IT functional areas such as performance mgmt, financial /business analysis and change mgmt
  • In Nigerian Breweries ,Acted as local project manager and did activities such as change management , stakeholder management , planning ,budgeting for SAP roll out.Created and executed user training as well as change awareness strategy
  • In CEE regional office, work as IT business analyst
  • Analyse existing services related to Investment Funds such as Order routing, Corporate Action, Custody, Fund Transfer.
  • Determine impacts, rationale for change and Present results to both Business and IT teams
Detailed Description
  • As an Intern Analyst for Investment Funds Services, I will study the impact of changes in the IT financial landscape on the relevant Clearstream services. I will gain a strong knowledge in requirement engineering, as well as in the Investment Funds, Settlement and Custody Industries
  • I was responsible for the requirement interpretation and implementation of solution for critical modules
  • I worked on the projects that would automate presale /post-sale activities of services of one of the Reputed US based company
  • Participate in requirement analysis, risks analysis and worked with Business Analysts for User Acceptance Test (UAT)
Detailed Description
  • Won a “You made a difference ”award for recognition towards excellent individual contribution to the project for two consecutively quarters
Company Description
Persistent is a global company specializing in software product and technology innovation. For more than two decades, we have partnered closely with pioneering start-ups, innovative enterprises and the world’s largest technology brands. We have utilized our fine-tuned product engineering processes to develop best-in-class solutions for customers in technology, telecommunication, life science, healthcare, banking, and consumer products sectors across North America, Europe, and Asia.