India- and US-based data analytics company Mu Sigma Inc. has appointed Ambiga Dhiraj as its new chief executive officer.
Ambiga replaces Dhiraj Rajaram, her husband and the company’s founder who will now be its chairman, according to a press statement.
She has been working with Mu Sigma for about eight years. She led talent management, marketing, innovation and product development functions before assuming the role of chief operating officer in February 2012.
Ambiga holds an M.S. in computer engineering, with specialisation in Artificial Intelligence, from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. She graduated in electrical engineering from Anna University in Chennai.
Mu Sigma was founded in 2004 by Rajaram, who was earlier a strategy consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton and PricewaterhouseCoopers. It helps companies institutionalise data-driven decision making and harness Big Data. The company solves high-impact business problems in marketing, risk and supply chain across 10 industry verticals. It claims to have about 3,500 decision science professionals and almost 140 Fortune 500 clients.
Mu Sigma is one of a handful of Indian unicorns, a tag meant for startups with at least $1 billion in valuation. Flipkart, Snapdeal, Ola, One97 Communications, InMobi and Zomato are the other known unicorns from India. Ambiga is the first woman CEO at an Indian unicorn.
Flipkart had gone through a similar top-level reshuffle recently when it named co-founder Sachin Bansal chairman and co-founder Binny Bansal new CEO.