Sesh Tirumala
Core Program Oversight
Your AI CoE Team
The AI Center of Excellence brings together experts from across Western Digital to drive innovation, ensure compliance, and deliver secure AI solutions. Our multidisciplinary team combines deep technical expertise with strategic vision to shape the future of AI at WD.
Strategic Alignment
Ensures every approved AI initiative maps to WD's enterprise priorities and measurable business outcomes.
Governance & Risk
Maintains AI policy compliance across all use cases — RAI assessments, data privacy, and regulatory adherence.
Value Capture
Tracks ROI on deployed use cases with quarterly reviews, adoption metrics, and outcome reporting to SteerCo.
Champion Enablement
Equips AI Champions with best practices, tooling, and CoE support to drive use cases within their functions.
Core Program Team
Katie Watson
Core Program Oversight
Sunita Sarathy
Overall Program
Harvinder Kalsi
Technology
Michael Demers
Data Platform
Phil Malatras
AI Governance
Joe Santosuosso
Data Governance
Humera Shahid
Talent, Training, Adoption & Change Mgmt.
Chee Kheng Lim
Enterprise AI Acceleration
Kalpana Ettenson
Communications
AI Champions
Operations
Chee Kheng Lim
Vice President, Digital and Operations Excellence
Operations
Apisit Thiraboonkun
Director, Data Science
Operations
Luis Geoffrey Macapayag
Director, Manufacturing Engineering
Operations
Zhizhen Li
Senior Director, Manufacturing Engineering
Operations
Vinu Athreya
Vice President Supply Chain COE
Operations
Nimisha Morkonda Gnanasekaran
Director, Data Science
Sales & Marketing
Dallas Lambert
VP, E-commerce and Customer Intelligence
Sales & Marketing
Brandon Dement
Manager 5, Project Management
Product
Bea Mibach
Senior Director, Business Operations
Product
Tiffany Santos
Director, R&D Engineering
Product
Murthy Kompella
Senior Director, ASIC Development Engineering
Product
Rob Meyer
Director, Software Development Engineering (Embedded)
Human Resources
Saravanan Chidambaram
Senior Director, Data Analytics
Legal
Yixin Zhang
Director II, Associate General Counsel
Finance
Ee-May Chin
Director, Accounting
IT
Harvinder Kalsi
Vice President, Information Technology
Office of the CEO
Chuck Dickinson
Director, Strategic Communications
Strategy
Ryan Peacock
Senior Director, Corporate Strategy
COS Counterparts
Adolphus Lim
Global Operations
James Chillemi
Sales & Marketing
Maryann Moore
Product
John Schroeder
Human Resources
Corrie Macpherson
Legal
Korina Kennedy
Finance
Sunita Sarathy
IT
What is the Al CoE?
The Al Center of Excellence (CoE) is WD’s central team responsible for governing, accelerating, and scaling artificial intelligence adoption across the enterprise. It was established to prevent fragmented, ungoverned Al proliferation — where every function builds independently, risks go unmanaged, and value is never measured.
Rather than replacing function-led innovation, the CoE provides the rails — a structured intake process, governance framework, assessment infrastructure, and delivery support — so that the best ideas get built safely, efficiently, and at enterprise scale.
Every Al initiative at WD moves through a 7-stage pipeline managed end-to-end through OneAl. The CoE owns the integrity of that pipeline — from the moment a Champion submits an idea to the moment a scaled solution is delivering measurable business value.
01.
Why IT Exists
Al adoption at WD was accelerating without a common framework — leading to duplicated builds, ungoverned data use, and untracked outcomes. The CoE was created to bring structure without slowing innovation.
02.
Who IT Serves
Every WD employee with an Al idea. The CoE works through Al Champions –functional leads who act as the bridge between grassroots innovation and governed enterprise deployment.
03.
What IT is Not
The CoE is not an approval bottleneck or a central Al team that builds everything. Use of approved tools like Copilot and WDChat requires no CoE involvement. The CoE steps in when new tools, sensitive data, or cross-functional scale are involved.
04.
Reporting Structure
The CoE reports to executive SteerCo and is co-led by program oversight (Sesh Tirumala, Katie Watson) and the overall program lead (Sunita Sarathy), with functional representation via Champions and CoS counterparts.
PROCESS
The 7-Stage Al Initiative Pipeline
01
AI Champion
Use Case Submission
- Submit ideas via 14-question intake form (or through Champion)
- Define problem statement with baseline performance
- Outline solution approach, tools, and expected value
- Include urgency rationale and governance (data + vendor needs)
Program Lead
CoE Triage
- Auto-summary, scoring (value + urgency), and risk flagging
- Review and validate AI-generated insights
- Return incomplete submissions with clear feedback
- Notify Champion of decision (advance or revise)
02
03
Owner: Tech, Data, Risk, Change Teams
Assessments
- Conduct parallel assessments across 4 domains
- Evaluate feasibility, data readiness, and compliance risks
- Assess user impact, adoption needs, and SOP changes
- Define reference architecture (systems, integrations, flows)
Core Program Team
Stage Gate 1
- Compile assessments into business case
- Approve or reject based on value and readiness
- Allocate funding, ownership, and delivery model
- Define path: CoE-led, Function-led, or resubmission
04
05
Delivery Squad
Design & Build
- Develop detailed architecture and implementation plan
- Build solution using reusable components
- Implement data pipelines and governance controls
- Test against acceptance criteria with human-in-loop checks
Champion · Change Mgmt.
Test & Launch
- Launch pilot with defined users and KPIs
- Execute training, SOPs, and communication plan
- Validate performance via Stage Gate 2
- Confirm readiness for scale with Champion sign-off
06
07
CoE SteerCo
Scale & Capture
- Execute enterprise-wide rollout
- Track value (cost, revenue, productivity gains)
- Monitor adoption via OneAI dashboard
- Maintain ongoing Responsible AI (RAI) assessments
