Simplilearn
Leadership Council

Vijayanand Rajandram is a data and AI leader with over 25 years of experience in digital transformation and data strategy across Fortune 500 companies, startups, and consulting firms. Recognized among North America’s Top 100 leaders in Data and AI, he has held multiple Chief Data and Analytics Officer roles and is currently the Chief Data Officer at Northern Trust Asset Management. He is also engaged in education through Data That Matters LLC and serves on the advisory board of the STEM Academy of Innovation and Leadership. He holds a Ph.D. from Queen Mary College, University of London.

Max Goff is a Generative AI and Data Science Consultant with over 30 years of experience in big data, machine learning, and technical strategy. He is the Founder of Decillion, Inc and Co-Founder of H/F Utah, and holds an MBA from the University of San Francisco. His expertise spans Generative AI, NLP, and large-scale data management, with a strong track record of driving innovation and building data-driven solutions.

Chester Ismay is a data science and AI expert with experience across academia and industry. He has served as visiting faculty at leading universities in the U.S. and Canada and led enterprise AI initiatives as an ML Evangelist at DataRobot, with prior experience as a business analytics consultant at Promontory Financial Group (IBM). He is the co-author of Statistical Inference via Data Science (ModernDive), a contributor to the widely used infer R package, and a former Board Member of the R Consortium. His work focuses on Generative AI, large language models, and MLOps, with an emphasis on scalable, real-world applications. He holds a Ph.D. from Arizona State University.

Brandon Keith Vaughn is an AI and data science expert with over 22 years of consulting experience across industries. He has held hands-on roles at organizations including Dell Technologies and has served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas. He currently leads AI and machine learning initiatives as a Senior Data Scientist, supporting large-scale analytics programs. He holds Ph.D. degrees from Florida State University and the University of West Florida.

Jitendra Vaswani is an SEO and affiliate marketing entrepreneur with over 12 years of experience driving growth through AI-powered digital strategies. He is the founder of DigiExe, a certified Google Partner Agency, and Bytegain, an AI-powered SEO copywriting and local SEO platform.

Manoj Yermalkar is a Supply Chain and Operations Strategist with over 30 years of experience in procurement, Agile supply chain development, and partner ecosystem optimization. He has served as Head of Procurement at ACGE and worked as a supply chain consultant.

Vijay Alfred is an experienced Supply Chain and Project Management Consultant with extensive leadership experience in operations and professional training. He serves as Honorary CEO of the National Project Management Authority (NPMA) in the UK.