Sanjeev Barnwal is co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) of Meesho, an ecommerce platform catering to fashion that was launched in 2015. An admirer of Sam Altman, Barnwal believes: “To attain success, unwavering commitment to a problem, adopting a fighter’s attitude while building the right team and culture are of paramount importance.” He realised early in life that technology holds tremendous potential to create a massive impact in this world. Raised in a modest household in Jharkhand, he was drawn towards engineering due to its emphasis on innovation and creativity; he completed his BTech from IIT-Delhi.

As CTO, Barnwal says his primary responsibility is steering the company’s technology vision and leveraging cutting-edge technology to generate the highest possible value for the customers. He believes in staying abreast with the latest advancements and innovations, such as generative AI (artificial intelligence) that have the potential to transform the ecommerce experience.

Barnwal states that CTI [company>team>individual] serves as a fundamental principle at Meesho, guiding employees to collaborate more efficiently and work towards shared objectives. He acknowledges that fostering true innovation requires empowering individuals with a sense of ownership, clearly defined objectives, and a culture that encourages freedom to experiment and innovate. “Bold experimentation stands as one of our core values and guiding principles,” he says.

At Meesho, they have a dedicated team of data scientists and machine learning engineers who focus on challenging problems—such as developing robust recommendation engines. As a leading ecommerce company, they have effectively spearheaded a focus on personalisation, using data science to customise each user’s experience, resulting in a substantial surge in order conversions, with improvements going as high as up to 50 percent, they claim. “Through careful evaluation and prioritisation, we continue to embrace technologies that offer significant potential and align closely with our goals while acknowledging the current limitations of others in meeting our unique requirements,” says Barnwal.