Hershey’s First CTO Details IT Transformation Roadmap and Priorities
The decision to establish a chief technology officer role marks a pivotal moment in the Hershey Company’s digital evolution.
Last September, the company hired Deepak Bhatia to oversee the company’s global tech strategy, focusing on digital capabilities and IT architecture. A year in, Bhatia shares details about how the role shapes new optimizations and efficiencies across talent, data, and operations, creating a culture of digital innovation.
“This transformation is about more than just adopting new tools; it’s about enabling our people and processes to work smarter, faster, and more effectively across the entire organization,” he says.
The Road to Hershey’s First CTO
Bhatia joined Hershey from Amazon, where he was previously VP of supply chain optimization. He brought an extensive background in automation, optimization, AI, predictive analytics, and supply chain planning, creating a strong foundation for Hershey’s analytics and IT growth goals.
Also read: Learn more about Hershey’s new analytics infrastructure
Hershey established the role to strengthen key areas of business, including forecasting, supply chain planning and optimization, trade and media spend optimization, automation, and cybersecurity, Bhatia tells CGT.
Through new data science and tech capabilities, and broad accessibility to insights, the company hopes to better embed data-driven decision-making and create a data framework that can support the coordinated yet decentralized use of modern technologies such as AI and machine learning.
While the core vision and strategy of the CTO role remain intact, the execution is continuously adapting to changes in the business environment.
“Data science and AI have always been key priorities, but we've intensified our focus on these areas to drive greater agility and responsiveness,” he says. “This heightened emphasis allows us to navigate and adapt to the fast-paced changes that now define every facet of the business landscape.”
To support this digital growth, the company also recently hired Gene Kholodenko as CIO to continue building tech modernization and digital transformations. He reports to Bhatia and serves on the information services leadership team.
Technology as a Supporting Player
Hershey’s ultimate goal is to modernize its IT operations but that transcends the limits of just upgrading technology.
Bhatia says it’s fundamentally about transforming the way the company works — rethinking the approach to IT and co-creating solutions with business teams as strategic partners that drive long-term efficiency instead of simply acting as facilitators.
This means doubling down on simplifying, digitizing, and automating Hershey’s global business processes and thinking far beyond cost optimization to create a flywheel effect that drives sustained automation and operational leverage.
The strategy allows Hershey’s to scale technologies more efficiently and maintain agility across the organization to quickly adapt to market demands while maximizing efficiency.
Many capabilities have been created in-house to take advantage of tailor-made solutions for Hershey’s software needs. This includes building internal product and capability platforms, reinventing job families and job architecture, and establishing mechanisms that allow data science and advanced analytics to empower insights that drive growth
“By doing so in a managed, decentralized, and federated manner, we’re enabling teams to operate with greater autonomy and agility,” says Bhatia.
One of the most significant implementations is the migration to SAP S/4HANA. The groundwork was laid out prior to Bhatia joining the organization but is now the backbone of Hershey’s global operations. “It provides a strong foundation that we’re actively leveraging to scale, automate, and optimize our global business processes across the enterprise,” he says.
As part of a holistic, start-small approach to IT, the company is working on parallel strategic workstreams that include end-to-end supply chain planning and forecasting, commodity procurement strategies, and commercial/media spend and investment optimizations. The focus is on harnessing data from Hershey's systems using time series forecasting, ML, econometrics, and optimization. The company begins with simple models and progressively adds complexity over time, iterating by incorporating new insights to improve overall effectiveness and drive increased efficiency and value.
3 Pillars for Sustained Growth
The Hershey Company has set its sights on three goals within its IT transformation to ensure sustained growth and innovation.
Talent
The company is developing internal talent and bringing in leaders across data science, AI/ML, software engineering, operations research, and technical product management.
Democratized Data
“We’re focused on democratizing high-quality data across the organization, making it accessible and actionable for teams at all levels.” The company’s federated data science approach, combined with advanced analytics, empowers teams to make smarter, faster decisions, he says.
Modernized and Scalable IT
“Our goal is to embed IT and data science at every critical and value-creating touchpoint across the organization, ensuring that technology and business strategy are seamlessly aligned.”
A Year In: Key Takeaways
Leadership members are aligned on the company’s IT trajectory, which includes embracing opportunities in business automation, installing decision-making capabilities, and understanding the importance of change management to any large-scale transformation.
A simple but profound realization since taking on the role is that while technology can be a powerful differentiator, it's the people behind it who truly unlock its full potential, says Bhatia.
“We’ve adopted a hybrid approach, focusing on developing internal talent while also strategically hiring to fill gaps where needed” — a strategy that he says ensures Hershey has both the expertise and the capacity to drive initiatives forward.
“As I’ve learned, organizational transformation is far more complex than a technical project — it’s about reshaping mindsets, evolving how we think, and creating lasting change."
