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Sriya Sainath, MBA student at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), was named 2022 Young Analyst in the inaugural IoA Analysts Awards from the Institute of Analytics (IoA), the global professional body for analytics and data science professionals. The awards were created to celebrate data’s positive impact on business and society. 

Sriya was nominated by Prof. U Dinesh Kumar, Chairperson at the Data Centre and Analytics Lab and member of faculty in the Decision Sciences area at IIMB, for being “extremely talented”, for her strong technical skills and for her commitment to excellence in all that she does. 

Her list of accolades is long: in 2022 Sriya was awarded the Flipkart Vidyarthini Scholar from the Women in Supply Chain Conclave and won InsideIIM’s Most Promising Incoming MBA Student from a field of applicants from India’s top B-schools. She is a former Double Gold Medalist (Best All-Rounder & Institute Topper) and Double Endowment Awardee (Best Graduate & Engineering Eminence), and was recognised for her “academic brilliance” as a State Topper-ISC & Kingston Education Awardee.

Sriya received a Recognition Award by Global VP for Growth Mindset and Principles Obsession and was the Global Winner of the Microsoft Hack for Ethics from a field of 65k+ participants. Other achievements include Adobe Scholar from Women In Technology India, where she won out of 4k+ contenders and was recognised as “a promising future leader”.

Her leadership positions include Global Representative at Women at Microsoft (2020), Vice President of the Literary and Debating Society (2018) and National Coordinator for Google Developers (2017) amongst other positions of responsibility. She also excels in extra-curricular activities having played Under-17 basketball for Odisha state and previously served as Convenor for the International Debating Championship. 

Her work so far demonstrates the value that analysts can bring to the organisations that they work for from their very first day, with the right kind of support, structure and encouragement. During an internship with Microsoft after getting her Bachelor’s degree, it became clear that a process she had started was, in fact, a patentable tool. With support from Microsoft, Sriya began the long process of getting her invention patented. In 2018, Sriya became a US Patent Holder for her Dynamic Pricing Model for maximising revenue with 30+% pricing optimization.

She has supported others coming through the profession just behind, starting initiatives in a women employees’ network in her organisation before re-training on a Master’s program at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India. She has also been proactive in researching and promoting ethical responsibility in the field of analytics, something we at the IoA are keen to push to the front of the minds of all members.

Sriya will become the first IoA Young Ambassador. Like anyone, she has found the gap between knowing about resources in theory and being able to apply them in practice to be a complex process. She is keen to encourage other young analysts to have the confidence to take initiative in projects so that they can get recognition for the work that they do. By encouraging each other, this generation of analysts is ready to contribute greatly to the field. In her own work in the future, she would like to find ways forwards to instigate social change and impact on stakeholders in the community.

Dr Clare Walsh, IoA Director of Education, has this to say about Sriya’s win: “Sriya has an impressive number of national and international recognitions already on her CV. She was chosen as our IoA Young Analyst because her achievements embody the qualities that we know that analysts need, and we hope that her role as an Ambassador for Young Analysts will inspire others.

“Her technical skills have been demonstrated beyond question in her academic and professional success. As the holder of a US patent, she has proven that age is not a barrier to contributing to the knowledge base in our field. We admire her teamwork spirit supporting others through the mentoring of newcomers while she was employed with Microsoft and in establishing a counselling service while at university. Ensuring GDPR compliance while working on a large data project shows her commitment to ethical work. Her success in debating competitions and her role on her school magazine demonstrated her recognition of the importance of communicative skills, as well as technical expertise.

“Having taken the lead on a number of successful projects already, she is now retraining in management and leadership skills and we look forward to seeing what she achieves in the future.”

Sriya said “I’m grateful for the honour of being the recipient of the Young Analyst Award by the Institute of Analytics. Thank you to both the IoA as well as Prof. Dinesh Kumar for recognising and having faith in my abilities. I believe this is an amazing initiative for guiding young data enthusiasts toward excelling in ethical data practice. I genuinely hope I can encourage others as well in honing their data skills diligently and responsibly [as an IoA Young Ambassador].”

We look forward to the work that Sriya will be doing with the young analyst community globally to promote confidence and excellence for all our younger IoA members and will be sharing her insights as our Young Analyst Ambassador with you throughout the year.

The 2023 Analysts Awards will be launched later this year and will include all the categories from 2022 including Data for Social Good, Innovative Research & Application and Young Analyst and may include new categories.