Albertsons hires former Kohl's exec to fill tech role
Albertsons has hired former Kohl’s executive Gautam Kotwal to serve as its executive vice president and chief data and analytics officer.
In this new role, Kotwal will be responsible for leading the company’s innovation efforts to drive value, create competitive differentiation and design personalized shopper experiences wherever and however they choose to shop.
“Our omnichannel platform is something our organization is deeply committed to, and to best serve our customers who shop each channel, we must begin to look at data across not only our customer base but also within our company to further innovate within our industry,” said Jim Donald, Albertsons president and chief operating officer. “Gautam possesses a unique blend of technical skill, boundless enthusiasm and a commitment to developing people and teams, all of which will serve him well in this new role. I’m excited to have Gautam join our company and formalize our data and analytics efforts under his leadership so that we can better engage our customers, no matter where they shop with us.”
Most recently, Kotwal served as vice president of analytics, data platform and data science engineering for Kohl’s. He built Kohl’s BigData team, with the overarching goal of enabling an insights-driven organization by democratizing data and science. He joined Kohl’s first in 2012 as the director of innovation before moving to director of innovation and data science.
Prior to working at Kohl’s, Kotwal worked at Netflix where he began as an engineering manager. He was promoted to director of engineering with responsibility for the Netflix Streaming test strategy, vision, test architecture and test automation.
In this new role, Kotwal will be responsible for leading the company’s innovation efforts to drive value, create competitive differentiation and design personalized shopper experiences wherever and however they choose to shop.
“Our omnichannel platform is something our organization is deeply committed to, and to best serve our customers who shop each channel, we must begin to look at data across not only our customer base but also within our company to further innovate within our industry,” said Jim Donald, Albertsons president and chief operating officer. “Gautam possesses a unique blend of technical skill, boundless enthusiasm and a commitment to developing people and teams, all of which will serve him well in this new role. I’m excited to have Gautam join our company and formalize our data and analytics efforts under his leadership so that we can better engage our customers, no matter where they shop with us.”
Most recently, Kotwal served as vice president of analytics, data platform and data science engineering for Kohl’s. He built Kohl’s BigData team, with the overarching goal of enabling an insights-driven organization by democratizing data and science. He joined Kohl’s first in 2012 as the director of innovation before moving to director of innovation and data science.
Prior to working at Kohl’s, Kotwal worked at Netflix where he began as an engineering manager. He was promoted to director of engineering with responsibility for the Netflix Streaming test strategy, vision, test architecture and test automation.