Pravin Raj
Verified Expert in Management Consulting
Technology Advisory Expert
Dallas, TX, United States
Toptal member since February 15, 2023
Pravin excels at empowering strategic ambitions with the minimum of surprises. With 30+ years of experience, including AWS and Cisco, he has been a COO, professional services leader, management consultant, portfolio manager, software engineer, evangelist, marketer, and author. Pravin has led distributed teams on every continent, built teams of 15-1,500+, managed multi-hundred-million-dollar P&Ls, and delivered customer outcomes with a CSAT of 9.4/10 across 1,000+ clients.
Career Highlights
Education Highlights
Case Studies
Operating Model Redesign
Industry Expertise
- Business Services
- Management Consulting
- HR & Staffing
- Custom Software & IT Services
- Education
- Training
- Media & Internet
- Computer Equipment & Peripherals
Other Expertise
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Customer Success
- Leadership
- P&L Management
- Senior Executive Management
- Strategy
- Transformational Leadership
Work Experience
Founder and CEO
OpenRun Ventures LLC
- Established and founded advisory services company that helps ambitious CEOs to grow and create value.
- Provided sample advisory and board engagements. Acted as an advisor for a stealth B2C startup. Advised the founders on GTM strategies to grow and capture market share in a rapidly changing and regulated industry.
- Acted as the advisor for two early-stage services startups. Helped founders refine business plans, raise working capital, and innovate with customers on the public cloud.
- Became the fractional head of BizDev for an AI startup, advised the founders on GTM strategies, and helped land first customers for this innovative SaaS company in the customer intent space.
Director and Co-lead
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Co-led the $353 million (+18% YoY) AWS Professional Services business in the United States, delivering around 1,000 engagements for 500 enterprise customers with a customer satisfaction score of 9.4 out of 10.
- Grew a 1,700-person team of industry-leading experts in technical (cybersecurity, DevOps, data, analytics, AI/ML, and AppDev) and non-technical (strategy, people, and project management) specializations.
- Enabled customer outcomes, such as an automotive eCommerce platform, increased customer satisfaction with AI predictive models, and improved time-to-market by migrating workloads to the cloud while reducing costs and improving the security posture.
Director and COO
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Contributed to approximately 60x revenue growth, 40x headcount growth, and multibillion dollars in downstream platform revenue by architecting all strategic planning, operational execution, financial management, enablement, and quality programs.
- Spearheaded the European and advisory practices on an interim basis for 18 months each.
- Served as an Amazon Bar Raiser, completing 600+ interviews and recruiting 150+ to fill critical roles, including the first professional services hires in five countries.
Director and COO
Cisco
- Integrated and revitalized multiple existing services teams with diverse mandates into one Cisco Consulting Services entity. .
- Conceived all internal transformation and operations efforts from the initial instantiation to a $100 million revenue run rate.
- Integrated an external SVP hire to lead Cisco Consulting Services. Enabled 66% bookings and 38% revenue growth while reducing costs by 7% in FY2014.
Education
Master's Degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA
Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering
Anna University - Chennai, India
Skills
Finance
Market Research, Business Intelligence (BI), Pricing, Fundraising, Pricing Strategy, Market Opportunity Analysis, Private Equity
Industry Expertise
Professional Services
Other
Leadership, Strategy, Customer Success, Senior Executive Management, P&L Management, Business Operations, Transformational Leadership, B2B Partnerships, Go-to-market (GTM) Strategy, Team Leadership, Organizational Design, COO, Growth Strategy, Business Strategy, Management Consulting, Business Plan Consulting, Investment Ideas, Value Proposition, B2B, Corporate Strategy, Recruitment, Business Planning, Delivery Management, People Management, Chief Operations Officer (COO), Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Change Management, Agile Coaching, Organizational Strategy & Design, Organizational Change Management (OCM), Operations, Innovation, Innovation Strategy, Performance Management, Strategic Planning, Strategic Planning & Execution, Executive Coaching, Scaling, Restructuring, Business Transformation, Digital Project Management, Product Strategy Consultant, CX Strategy, Sales Strategy, Offshoring, Enterprise SaaS, Market Assessment, SaaS, Startups, Pitch Decks, Business Models, Partnerships, Sales Growth, International Growth, Storytelling, Pitch Deck Consultant, Software Development Management, Cloud Architecture, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Industrial Engineering, Operations Research, Business, Engineering, P&L Responsibility, Sales & Channel Enablement, Quality Management, Learning, Communication, Google, Operating Models, Target Operating Models, Organization Building, AWS IoT, Cloud
How to Work with Toptal
Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.
Share your needs
Choose your talent
Start your risk-free talent trial
Top talent is in high demand.
Start hiring