The Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP) honored Sid Nasnodkar with a platinum AVA Digital Award for Product Leadership, marking a significant milestone in his distinguished career. The AVA Digital Awards is an international competition recognizing excellence in digital marketing products. The awards are renowned for their stringent selection criteria and rigorous judging process, celebrating excellence in digital creativity, branding, and strategy. This year saw 2,700 entries. Nasnodkar's triumph in this highly competitive arena is a testament to his exceptional talent and dedication to the field of digital technology, making him one of the only four professionals worldwide to win a Platinum, the top award, in the individual achievement category this year. This prestigious award not only recognizes his capabilities but also underscores his influential role in shaping the digital landscape.
Currently, at Amazon, Nasnodkar holds a pivotal role as the Head of Product Management, overseeing the Demand for the Sponsored Products Advertising business. According to analysts, Amazon's growth is primarily driven by Sponsored Products. According to the latest earnings release, Amazon saw advertising sales grow 27% year-over-year for a total of $14.6 billion in the Q4 2023 period ended Dec. 31. Nasnodkar recently launched an initiative to allow Amazon sellers to identify best advertising opportunities and launch Ad campaigns with pre-identified presets. This is first-of-a-kind original initiative in the industry that is not offered by any other retailers. Prior to this innovation, launching Sponsored Product advertising campaigns on Amazon was a tedious and time-consuming task for sellers. They had to manually research ideal combinations of keywords, bids, and budgets, often leading to inaccuracies and suboptimal performance.
Nasnodkar led the team and revolutionized this process with an AI and machine learning-powered system that streamlined and simplified campaign launching. This ingenious solution uses predictive algorithms and automation to recommend optimized campaign settings tailored to each seller's needs, saving considerable time and effort. This milestone highlights his deep knowledge of product management, advertising, customer-centric approach, and ability to transform complex issues into intuitive solutions.
Nasnodkar's tenure at Amazon also includes notable achievements in the Pet Supplies category and with the Alexa voice assistant. In 2017, he launched Pet Profiles, which revolutionized the pets' e-commerce space, which was then the only one of this kind in the industry. This initiative offered personalized product suggestions based on specific pet needs, streamlined the shopping experience, increased customer loyalty, and provided valuable data-driven insights. We saw other pet supplies retailers including Chewy and JD.com follow suit in the following years marking the significance of the innovation.
Furthermore, Nasnodkar was instrumental in expanding Amazon's range of pet supplies and services, including entering the veterinary diets market. His efforts significantly enhanced Amazon's credibility as a trusted pet supply source and established strategic partnerships with leading veterinary diet manufacturers. In 2019, Nasnodkar focused on enhancing Alexa, Amazon's AI-powered virtual assistant. He envisioned and executed a strategy to make Alexa an expert in knowledge about any type of product. This development significantly improved Alexa's ability to answer queries accurately and provide valuable information to users, thereby enhancing the overall user experience and solidifying Amazon's position in the voice assistant market.
Nasnodkar also played a crucial role at Meta (formerly Facebook), where he led the development of a video calling platform for all of Meta's apps like Facebook and Instagram, and at Hughes Network Systems, leading Product for the International Division to bring satellite connectivity to several parts of the globe. His entrepreneurial journey began in 2008 with co-founding iWeb Technology Solutions, which provided free digitization software to underserved universities worldwide. Nasnodkar holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering from Goa University, an MS in Computer Science from the University of Southern California, and an MBA from Columbia Business School – the combined technical and business acumen being crucial to becoming an industry-leading figure in product management.
