TREVOSE, PA – February 1, 2019 – The Advertising Specialty Institute® (ASI) today announced
it has named former Amazon executive Dave Lakshmanan its new Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the ASI Family of Companies.
Mr. Lakshmanan will lead software development, product design and infrastructure that supports all ASI products and services. ASI’s flagship product, the technology platform ESP®, has nearly 1 million promotional products and manages the industry’s supply and marketing chain.
At ASI, Mr. Lakshmanan reports to Timothy M. Andrews, president and chief executive officer of ASI, the largest membership organization in the $24.7 billion promotional industry, with a network of over 23,500 distributors and suppliers throughout North America. The ASI Family of Companies consists of ASI, ASI Show and ASI Computer Systems Inc., an industry provider of innovative accounting and systems software.
“Dave is an experienced leader with a successful track record of building e-commerce applications on mobile and web platforms, and I’m thrilled to welcome him to our team,” said Mr. Andrews. “He has the exact skill set needed to lead us during a critical time for the industry, when user-friendly products, a simplified shopping experience, super-fast delivery and the very best customer service are of utmost importance.”
During the past five years, Mr. Lakshmanan worked at Amazon in three e-commerce businesses. Most recently, he served as the director leading the software engineering teams that built customer-facing apps for Amazon Fresh. He previously served as CTO of Quidsi, a retail operation owned and integrated into Amazon, with 10 million active users, and as vice president of software development for Amazon’s Audible, whose mobile and web apps are used by 40+ million users worldwide.
Before joining Amazon, Mr. Lakshmanan was at Experian, the consumer credit company, and spent 10 years with increasing responsibility at Bloomberg Financial Markets. Mr. Andrews said he wanted a CTO able to solidify ASI’s position as the leading technology provider in the promotional products space and chose Mr. Lakshmanan from a field of 100 candidates.
“Dave was our clear number-one choice,” Mr. Andrews said. “Three key attributes impressed me the most about Dave: He has a proven ability to work collaboratively with his peers and with customers, has a transparent operating style, and he believes strongly in training and mentoring team members to help them grow.”
Mr. Lakshmanan earned his master’s in computer science from Temple in 1992. He earned his bachelor’s in computer engineering from Shivaji University in India in 1988.
He and his wife, Sukanya, live in Lawrenceville, NJ, and are the parents of two boys and a girl.
About ASI
The Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI®) serves a network of 23,500 suppliers, distributors and decorators in the $24.7 billion promotional products industry. ASI’s flagship product, the technology platform ESP®, manages the industry’s supply and marketing chain. ASI also produces award-winning digital and print content, live events and educational programs that enable companies in 55 countries to be more efficient, productive and profitable. ASI’s Counselor® magazine provides the most authoritative business content in the industry, and the ASI Education Certification Program features 200+ live and online education courses for industry professionals. The company, family owned and operated since 1962, is proud to have been consistently ranked among the “Best Places to Work” in Philadelphia and Bucks County, PA. For more info: www.asicentral.com.