Cloud-based information services specialist Neustar hired former Walmart Chief Data Officer Venkat Achanta to be its Chief Data and Analytics Officer. Achanta will develop and manage Neustar’s identity and attribution platform

Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Steven Wolfe Pereira called Achanta “a real thought leader” and pointed out that attracting top data-science talent is no easy feat. Pereira said that the position, newly created for Achanta, was a “great match” in part because of the way data science interacts with the entire company, from marketing and financial services to security and telecommunications.

Achanta comes to Neustar after working as Chief Data Officer for Walmart since 2014 where he was responsible for enterprise-wide data and analytics delivery and platforms. Before that, Achanta served as SVP, global head of analytics and big data at AIG; vice president of enterprise data services at Capital One; and VP, global product development and delivery for Experian. Achanta has a bachelor of science in computer science and systems engineering from Andhra University; and MBAs from the National University of Singapore and the UCLA Anderson School of Management. In his role as chief data and analytics officer for Neustar, he will report to company CEO and president, Lisa Hook, who called Achanta “uniquely qualified to lead Neustar’s data science innovations.”

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Sterling, Virginia, Neustar demonstrated its PlatformOne solution at FinovateSpring 2016. The company announced in June that it would split into two companies—one based on call-routing for telecoms and the other on information services. This month, Neustar reported that it was working with Experian to make data onboarding easier for marketers by combining its strength in real-time information services with Experian’s vast national consumer database.