Director-Level AI Program Leader, Governance & LLMs

SOORAJ BOPANNA

Director / Senior Director, Technical Program Leadership

Enterprise AI Transformation & Governance • Applied AI / ML & LLM Platforms • Regulated AI Delivery San Ramon, California 267-***-**** *************@**********.*** linkedin.com/in/sooraj-bopanna EXECUTIVE PROFILE

Executive program leader who turns frontier AI research into shipped, compliant, production systems. Twenty years of program rigor and a track record of building PMO infrastructure from zero, three builds in three years, in domains where the discipline itself is still being invented. Direct experience leading 40 to 65 person cross-functional programs across AI/ML platforms (Amazon Alexa), LLM deployment and first-of- kind compute infrastructure (PsiQuantum), regulated medical AI (Avail Medsystems, ISO 13485), retail computer vision across cloud, edge, and hardware procurement (Walmart / Sams Club), and enterprise AI transformation and governance in regulated pharma (Exelixis). Formal credentials in generative AI and large language models, deep learning, and quantum machine learning. SELECTED IMPACT

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Spotline, Inc. Alameda, CA Sep 2025 to Present

Director of Technical Program Management, AI/ML

PsiQuantum Palo Alto, CA Mar 2025 to Jun 2025

Senior Staff Technical Program Manager, Compute Platform Development Insight Global (Walmart / Sams Club) San Bruno, CA Nov 2024 to Feb 2025 Senior Program Manager, Enterprise Computer Vision Platform Cut Tier-1 customer-support response time by 40% at PsiQuantum by leading deployment of LLM-driven self-service agents under a single data-science / engineering / product roadmap with prompt-optimization and compliance loops.

Drove a 2,300 bps QSR improvement across Amazon Alexa's Q&A Search ML portfolio in six months, surpassing annual OKRs by 300 bps and enabling launch into UK, Germany, India.

Achieved 50% AV noise reduction and 70% field-issue backlog cut at Avail Medsystems while leading a 40+ person team delivering AI/ML medical imaging in an ISO 13485-regulated environment.

Improved program-delivery efficiency by 30% at Walmart / Sams Club by establishing the AI/ML PMO and accelerating computer-vision time-to-market by 25% through cloud, edge, and critical-hardware procurement integration.

Built the software PMO from zero for the world's first fault-tolerant quantum-computing platform at PsiQuantum, a first-of-kind compute- infrastructure program, coordinating 50+ stakeholders to a successful beta launch.

Lead enterprise transformation programs across AI-enabled SaaS platforms, contract lifecycle management, and SAP modernization within a regulated pharmaceutical environment, coordinating engineering, product, business, security, and compliance stakeholders.

Drive evaluation and adoption of AI-enabled enterprise capabilities, establishing program requirements, implementation roadmaps, governance controls, and release processes for solutions operating within regulated business workflows.

Establish AI governance and responsible-AI delivery controls across enterprise programs, including data-use requirements, human oversight, validation, auditability, vendor-risk management, and lifecycle governance.

Partner with engineering, business, compliance, and vendors to define production-readiness standards for AI-enabled systems, translating regulatory and operational requirements into technical delivery gates and acceptance criteria.

Build governance and delivery cadence across distributed engineering teams, ensuring reliable movement from backlog through validation and production while maintaining traceability, compliance, and audit readiness for AI-enabled and traditional enterprise systems.

Lead vendor evaluation and contract negotiations for enterprise technology platforms, assessing AI capabilities, data-handling practices, security controls, model-related risks, integration requirements, and regulatory readiness.

Apply program controls developed in regulated pharma to emerging enterprise AI governance, creating reusable operating disciplines for change management, monitoring, documentation, risk review, and production lifecycle management.

Cut Tier-1 customer-support response time by 40% by leading design and deployment of LLM-driven self-service agents, integrating data science, engineering, and product under a single roadmap.

Implemented SDLC best practices across the software platform, including release governance, definition-of-done, prompt-optimization feedback loops, and compliance reviews, improving delivery consistency and automation quality.

Established the software engineering PMO from zero for the world's first Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computing (FTQC) platform, a first-of- kind compute-infrastructure program, leading 50+ stakeholders across research, hardware, software, product, and external partners to a successful beta launch.

Established and led the AI/ML PMO for a leading retail organization, standardizing governance and improving program-delivery efficiency by 30%.

Coordinated AI-model, cloud-infrastructure, and edge-computing integration to deliver AI infrastructure for self-service retail at large-scale store deployment; accelerated time-to-market by 25% through end-to-end planning and procurement of critical hardware infrastructure.

Avail Medsystems Santa Clara, CA Feb 2021 to Jul 2023 Senior Software Engineering Program Manager, AI Medical Device Platform Amazon Palo Alto, CA Dec 2019 to Dec 2020

Senior Technical Program Manager, Alexa Shopping ML EARLIER EXPERIENCE

CA Technologies Senior Principal Architect / Program Manager, IoT Strategy & Developer Products Nov 2017 to Aug 2019 Drove 30% adoption increase across smart-city and transportation edge/IoT initiatives; architected BLE-enabled medical IoT integration with Hyperledger Fabric. Trailblazer Award nominee (2018). Quantum Engagements Quantumlabz (Advisory Board, Pro-Bono) and Quantum Open Source Foundation (Mentee) 2019 and 2024 Hands-on programming in Qiskit on IBM Q; designed novel Quantum Machine Learning algorithm projecting 10% accuracy improvement; top-performer recognition out of 400+ global QOSF participants. Polycom Manager, IT Applications, Sales & Services Oct 2015 to Dec 2016 Reduced application defect backlog by 60%; achieved 100% on-time delivery and 40% operational efficiency improvement across enterprise sales and service applications.

Cardinal Health Project Manager / Senior Advisor Jun 2009 to Oct 2015 Managed end-to-end CRM implementations across CRM OnDemand cloud, Siebel, Oracle EBS, SOA; contributed to 30% increase in call volumes.

Fujitsu Americas Senior Management Consultant Sep 2005 to Jun 2009 Project management, business analysis, and process improvement for global customer businesses; led teams across the United States and India.

EDUCATION, CERTIFICATIONS & RECOGNITION

Master of Science, Computer Science Central Michigan University Bachelor of Engineering, Electronics & Communication University of Mysore Executive & Technical Education: DeepLearning.AI / AWS, Generative AI with Large Language Models • DeepLearning.AI, Deep Learning Specialization • Stanford University, Machine Learning • MIT Professional Education (Quantum Computing & Applications, Leadership and Innovation Management) • Ingenii, Quantum Machine Learning Fundamentals • Northeastern University, IoT Certificate. Certifications & Recognition: Project Management Professional (PMP) • Certified Scrum Master (CSM) • 24 active certifications • Trailblazer Award nominee, CA Technologies (2018) • Top-Performer recognition, Quantum Open Source Foundation (2024, of 400+ global participants). Core Capabilities: AI / ML Platform & LLM Program Leadership • AI Infrastructure Delivery (cloud, edge, large-scale hardware procurement) • 0-to-1 PMO Architecture • Regulated-Environment Delivery (ISO 13485, pharma / GxP) • EU-AI-Act-ready control disciplines • Research-to- Production Handoff • Cross-Functional Orchestration (40 to 65 person teams) • Executive & Board-Level Stakeholder Management • International Launch (UK, Germany, Argentina) • Hands-On Technical Fluency (OpenCV, Qiskit, IBM Q, Hyperledger). Co-founded the PMO organization and led a 40+ person cross-functional team across R&D, product, engineering, and support to deliver real-time AI/ML medical-imaging solutions, achieving 50% AV noise reduction and 20% image-efficiency gain using OpenCV and RNNoise.

Designed CMS documentation for medical-device AI software ensuring full ISO 13485 compliance through technical documentation, change control, and post-market feedback disciplines that map directly to high-risk AI obligations under emerging regimes such as the EU AI Act.

Cut field-issue backlog by 70% within six months, resolving 250 unresolved cases through operational rigor and tightened feedback loops. Reduced time-to-market by 20% across firmware and software automation; integrated three external partners end to end and led Avail Console's first international deployment (Argentina), increasing market reach by 10%.

Led a 60+ person cross-functional portfolio across TPM, engineering, UX, and business; aligned strategy with VP-level leaders in Legal, PR, and Finance to drive execution.

Drove a 2,300 bps Quality Satisfaction Rating improvement across Alexa's Q&A Search ML portfolio in six months, surpassing annual OKRs by 300 bps using semantic-retrieval and query-understanding models.

Boosted Alexa response accuracy by 30% leading end-to-end ML programs across editorial, graph, and web data sources; spearheaded international expansion to UK, Germany, India achieving 50%+ QSR across all three markets.

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