Biography
About Sayan Chakraborty
Sayan Chakraborty is a Board Member at TransUnion, where he chairs the Technology Committee, and serves as an advisor to Nordic Capital. His 35-year career spans the full spectrum of technology, from interplanetary spacecraft to enterprise software powering global Fortune 500 companies. Most recently, he served as President of Product and Technology at Workday until his retirement in December 2025, where he led the strategy, delivery, infrastructure, and security of the company's products and enterprise cloud platform.
Sayan began his career as an engineer at NASA/JPL and then Trimble Navigation, working on interplanetary spacecraft and contributing to the early commercialization of GPS technology. He holds both Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in Aerospace Engineering from MIT, where his training in complex systems and probabilistic analysis laid the foundation for his approach to enterprise software.
Before joining Workday, Sayan founded GridCraft, a cloud-based simulation and AI analytics platform. GridCraft was acquired by Workday in 2015, and Sayan has since held progressive leadership roles including Senior Vice President of Technology, Executive Vice President of Technology, and Executive Vice President of Product and Technology before his appointment as co-president in 2023.
Prior to GridCraft, Sayan served as Vice President of Software Development at Oracle, leading teams focused on next-generation collaboration products. His earlier career included leadership roles at Cygnus Solutions and multiple technology startups, where he developed expertise across the full technology stack, from embedded systems to modern cloud architecture.
Sayan's technical breadth is unusual for enterprise executives. He maintains hands-on expertise across more than a dozen programming languages and has led products from initial concept through $9 billion in revenue. He previously served on the National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee (NAIAC), advising the President and executive branch on U.S. government policy issues related to artificial intelligence.
During his tenure at Workday, Sayan was the driving force behind the company's innovation strategy and its ability to scale its platform to support the world's largest and most complex organizations, with more than 11,000 customers and 70+ million users. He positioned Workday at the forefront of enterprise AI, embedding machine learning into core business processes rather than treating it as a peripheral capability.