Born and raised in India, Anju Gupta, PhD, feels very fortunate to have been able to complete her early education at an excellent university, as colleges and universities in India are highly competitive. She began her formal education with a Bachelor of Science at Banaras Hindu University followed by a Master of Science in life sciences. Qualifying for a scholarship/fellowship from the United States government for her doctoral studies, she joined The Ohio State University and graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy in genetics and statistics in 2001. From there, Dr. Gupta embarked on her career with the Monsanto Company, now Bayer AG, serving as the statistical genetics lead from 2005 to 2009 and the analytics and process lead from 2009 to 2011.
Rising through the ranks at Monsanto, Dr. Gupta became the director of global analytics and process in 2011 and the director of North American technology and strategy in 2013. She concluded her tenure with Monsanto as the director of digital innovation and partnerships and outreach from 2014 to 2018. From 2018 to 2019, she served as the vice president for Syngenta’s sustainability campaign before spending a year as the vice president and chief data and analytics officer for Enterprise Holdings Inc. from 2019 to 2020. Dr. Gupta joined the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company as the vice president of data sciences and analytics in 2020, where she has excelled ever since, driving the data science and artificial intelligence for the production of various business lines to help clients.
Having excelled in data science and communications for over 15 years, Dr. Gupta is a noted expert in the artificial intelligence and data science industries and has brought that expertise to a variety of different fields. She is particularly proud to have established a reputation as a trustworthy individual among industry leaders through her years of reliable service. To that end, she has become a sought-after speaker and has given presentations for a variety of groups starting in 2013, including the AI World Conference & Expo, the National Library of Medicine conferences, AI Evolution, the Informs Business Analytics Conference, B2B Connect, the Global World Trade Congress and more. Dr. Gupta also co-authored a book on artificial intelligence in business and has contributed a number of articles to professional publications as well.
Looking toward the future, Dr. Gupta hopes to affect more changes in her field and make a difference through the creation of technologies that will make life better for people. She holds an incredible 17 patents from her early work with Monsanto, concerning plant breeding, cotton and soybean genotyping and x-ray imaging. Other professional endeavors of hers include time spent as a regional advisory board member for NPower from 2017 to 2018 and a position on the board of AI World since 2016. With a wide range of accomplishments under her belt, Dr. Gupta attributes much of her success to her mother, Sushila, and her husband, both of whom have supported and inspired her throughout her career, as well as the mentors and coaches who have guided her along her professional journey.
For her excellence, Dr. Gupta has been the recipient of a number of honors and accolades. Receiving two Above and Beyond Awards from Monsanto in 2004 and 2005, she was presented with an R&D Excellence Award in 2006, a Technologist Award of the Year for the implementation of a research and development advancement application in 2010, and a Global R&D Operational Excellence Award for global standardization in 2012. In 2015, she was named a senior science fellow and also received a Global R&D Operational Excellence Award for lab automation. After receiving the St. Louis YWCA Award in 2017, Dr. Gupta was more recently honored with both an Incredible Talent Award and a CIO 100 Innovation Award in 2018.