Sasanka Bhagabati
Senior Program Manager
Hyderabad
Summary
Experienced leader with strong background in guiding teams, managing complex projects, and achieving strategic objectives. Excels in developing efficient processes, ensuring high standards, and aligning efforts with organizational goals. Known for collaborative approach and commitment to excellence.
Overview
9
9
years of professional experience
Work History
Senior Program Manager
Amazon
10.2021 - Current
- Leading the automation roadmap for audit operations as part of the PMO. Responsible for defining product roadmaps with the tech teams in line with the long-term org vision and leading the OP planning for team in collaboration with all tech partners.
- Leading the tech roadmap for efficiency improvement. These projects are aimed at improving audit operations efficiency through automated payments of an additional ~12% spend (~$5N per annum), thereby reducing manual efforts by ~10,000 hours per annum. These projects are also targeted at improving systematic dispute management for a spend of ~$2B per annum.
- Leading the efforts to define tech roadmap for risk and fraud improvement. This charter is aimed at identifying potential areas of risk and fraud, and defining tech roadmap for managing risk on an annual transportation spend of ~$36B.
- Leading the initiatives to meet regulatory compliance requirements. Worked on meeting the compliance requirements for Brazil Ct-e invoices. This project is aimed at building capabilities for automated accounting of federal taxes. This included moving to a lower grain of auditing based on Seller of Records. Also leading the efforts to meet e-Invoicing compliance for Germany, Poland, France, etc.
- Leading the Transportation Domain Review process, which is responsible for assessing all business launches in Amazon having a transportation impact. Reviewed a total of 175 launches in 2023 and 70+ in YTD’24, ensuring a balance between financial risk, manual effort and speed of launch.
- Led the org level change of migrating to a new audit and payment processing system, and successfully migrated 500+ carriers with an annual spend of ~$36B. The objective was to deprecate invoice level audit and payment processing platform, and migrate all carriers to a more granular shipment level audit and payment processing workflow, without impacting current CX and auditor efficiency.
- Led the marketplace launches and new business expansions for automated invoice and payment processing in MENA, FELA, LATAM and APAC countries.
Program Manager II
Amazon
12.2019 - 09.2021
- Managed multiple strategic projects with numerous sub-projects or workstreams, working with stakeholders from Accounting, Procurement, Carrier Management, Accounts Payables, Transport Financial systems (TFS) and EDI teams.
- Led the program and subsequent change management for migration of invoice processing system for EU region, which was aimed at migrating 70+ carriers to a more granular system for auditing and payments.
- Led the e-Invoicing compliance and payment automation program for India, which was aimed at making Amazon transportation systems compliant with the legislation of registering invoices with Invoice Registration Portal (IRP). Also led the programs to meet e-Invoicing compliance for Brazil and Mexico. These projects were aimed at developing invoicing systems to comply with regulatory e-Invoicing requirements of ingesting third-party invoices from government servers.
- Led multiple process improvement initiatives by partnering with tech, business and procurement teams to improvement the manifest processes, thus eliminating manifest quality related penalties worth ~$18MM per annum.
- Collaborated with procurement and accounting partners to setup a process to audit monthly offline billing by US postal carrier, thereby improving financial control on a spend of ~$180MM per annum.
- Collaborated with procurement and carrier partners to identify incorrect invoicing from carriers across marketplaces and achieved overpayment avoidance worth ~$18MM for the FY20-21.
Program Manager I
Amazon
04.2018 - 11.2019
- Worked on third-party transportation freight spend management for outbound small-parcel carriers across NA, LATAM and APAC regions.
- Led multiple process improvement initiatives and achieved overpayment avoidance worth ~$115MM for the organization in FY18-19 and FY19-20.
- Drove compliance to reduce off-manifest from ~6% to less than ~2% in Brazil; ~8% to less than ~2% in Canada and ~20% to less than ~12% in India.
- Drove carrier compliance in Canada region for improving invoicing behavior, thereby increasing visibility on a spend of ~$360MM per annum.
- Worked with Seller-Flex team from India marketplace to drive compliance with sellers, thereby reducing off-manifest contribution by ~50%.
- Identified manifestation gaps and worked with procurement teams to correct the same, thereby improving cost allocation by ~$1MM per month.
- Supported accounting and tax teams in identifying incorrect ledger entries, thereby helping claim tax rebates worth ~$6.5MM in Canada region.
- Supported Accounting team in identifying incorrect ledger entries for returns shipments, thereby helping them correctly allocate ~$5MM.
- Corrected general ledger account mappings for CA & MX regions, thereby eliminating incorrect ledger entries and driving tax compliance.
Program Management Intern
Amazon
05.2017 - 06.2017
- Worked with carriers to identify pain points related to issue of unmatched and proposed action plan to reduce the same.
- Developed a forecasting model to have an estimate for all unmatched shipments in the system for month-end accounting process.
- Developed dashboards to measure the impact of unmatched shipments from various FCs/nodes, product groups and categories.
Project Engineer
Wipro Technologies
07.2015 - 05.2016
- Completed training on technologies such as Java-J2EE, JavaScript, HTML, etc. and database management system language SQL.
Education
Post-Graduate Diploma in Management -
Indian Institute of Management Shillong
Bachelors of Technology - undefined
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
Skills
Tableau
Microsoft Office
SQL
R (Beginner’s Proficiency)
Analytical Skills
Change Management
Strategic Planning
Relationship Management
Complex Problem-Solving
Teamwork and Collaboration
Process Improvement
Training and Development
Team Development
Performance Evaluations
Relationship Building
Extracurricular Activities
- Worked as a core member & managed a team of volunteers for Nurturing Minds, an IIM initiative to teach needy & underprivileged children.
- Selected as Campus Finalists from IIM Shillong in L'Oréal Brandstorm 2017, a marketing strategy competition organized by L'Oréal Paris.
- Worked for various initiatives aimed at educating needy and underprivileged children, under National Service Scheme (IIT Roorkee Chapter).
- Worked as a Coordinator in a six-member team and managed a group of volunteers at Thomso, the annual cultural festival of IIT Roorkee.
Awards
- Secured Chief Minister's Merit Scholarship from the Government of Assam for distinctive performance in the field of academics.
- Awarded merit scholarships by the Indian Chapter of North South Foundation (US) for distinctive performance in the field of academics.
- Awarded merit scholarship for four consecutive years for academic proficiency and being amongst top 15% of the batch at IIT Roorkee.
Languages
English
Bilingual or Proficient (C2)
Hindi
Bilingual or Proficient (C2)
Timeline
Senior Program Manager
Amazon
10.2021 - Current
Program Manager II
Amazon
12.2019 - 09.2021
Program Manager I
Amazon
04.2018 - 11.2019
Program Management Intern
Amazon
05.2017 - 06.2017
Project Engineer
Wipro Technologies
07.2015 - 05.2016
Post-Graduate Diploma in Management -
Indian Institute of Management Shillong
Bachelors of Technology - undefined
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
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