Open to opportunities

CRISTIAN APARA

@cristianapara

Executive enterprise and data architecture leader modernizing SAP and cloud ecosystems into API-driven, secure platform architectures.

Chile

Message

What I'm looking for

I’m looking to lead enterprise and data architecture transformations—SAP and cloud modernization into API-driven platforms—combining strategic roadmap ownership with hands-on technical execution, strong governance, and measurable outcomes for regulated, mission-critical operations.

I’m a technology leader with 18+ years designing and operating enterprise architectures and data platforms for large-scale, regulated organizations. I specialize in connecting complex ecosystems (SAP S/4HANA, Azure, Databricks, IRIS InterSystems) and modernizing legacy systems into scalable, secure, API-first architectures.

In my current role as Head of Enterprise & Data Architecture at ACHS, I lead the enterprise and data architecture strategy for 500,000+ insured workers. I defined and implemented the enterprise architecture framework across 15+ mission-critical systems, designed API-first governance that reduced time-to-integration by 40%, led USD $8M+ CAPEX/OPEX management with ~25% YoY cloud spend optimization through FinOps, and improved core platform availability to 99.95% for 24/7 operations.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Head of Enterprise & Data

Current

Asociación Chilena de Seguridad (ACHS)

May 2024 - Present (2 years)

Led enterprise and data architecture strategy for a 500,000+ insured-worker occupational health and safety organization. Defined an API-first microservices governance model (40% faster time-to-integration), improved platform availability to 99.95%, and managed $8M+ annual CAPEX/OPEX while leading a 25+ person multidisciplinary team.

Enterprise Architecture SAP S 4HANA Azure Architecture API First & Microservices Governance FinOps Data Governance Cloud Migration Team Leadership

Head of Big Data Architecture

Asociación Chilena de Seguridad (ACHS)

Dec 2019 - Jun 2024 (4 years 6 months)

Designed and scaled the corporate Azure Data Lake from zero to 500+ TB, covering clinical, operational, commercial and risk domains. Built hybrid batch/streaming/event-driven pipelines processing 50M+ events daily from 200+ sources, enabled 50+ ML use cases, and reduced batch processing windows by 60% by migrating legacy ETL to Spark/Databricks.

Data Lake Databricks Delta Lake Apache Spark ETL Machine Learning Enablement

Big Data Knowledge Specialist

Everis (NTT Data)

Nov 2018 - Dec 2019 (1 year 1 month)

Led big data consulting engagements for banking and telecommunications clients, designing data platforms and training internal engineering teams. Served as a regional technical reference for Spark, Hadoop, and modern data architectures.

Data Platform Design Apache Spark Hadoop Data Architecture Client Delivery Technical Training Solution Architecture

Big Data Architect / Engineer

Expedia Group

Aug 2017 - Nov 2018 (1 year 3 months)

Contributed to the global Big Data and Machine Learning team delivering a personalization platform for 120M+ users and 200B+ events. Optimized distributed architecture to scale beyond 12M daily active users and helped deliver end-to-end big data/data science projects into production.

Distributed Systems Kafka Amazon Kinesis Gitlab CI

Co-Founder / Web & Data

Lamac.cl

May 2015 - Jan 2018 (2 years 8 months)

Co-founded a web development and data analytics consultancy and led technical delivery for client engagements across Chile. Delivered solutions using Hadoop/Spark-based architectures and modern data engineering practices on AWS/Azure/GCP.

Data & Analytics Hadoop Apache Spark Hive Kafka Python Django Cloud Platforms (AWS Azure GCP)Docker Kubernetes

IT Manager / Deputy IT Mgr

Zcontents

Apr 2010 - Aug 2017 (7 years 4 months)

Directed IT strategy and security policies for an OTT streaming/media company, defining SLAs and agile development practices. Established an Akamai regional partnership, built live sports streaming on AWS/Google App Engine, and implemented a DevOps pipeline using IaC and CI/CD with Ansible, Chef, Kubernetes, and Docker.

AWS Google App Engine AWS Lambda CI CD Ansible Kubernetes