Nitin Natesh Kumar’s story bridges the worlds between engineering and strategy, startups and enterprises, operational complexity, and clear business outcomes. Over the last several years, the gap between enterprise giants and fast-scaling e-commerce companies has steadily widened. However, Nitin is working to combat this by designing smarter, tech-driven fulfillment networks that allow smaller players to compete on speed, cost, and scale.
Nitin has gained a unique blend of experience across different scales, from spearheading Walmart’s nationwide next-day delivery rollout to assisting mid-sized companies like OnTrac and Shopify in scaling quickly under pressure. Currently serving as the Director of Planning and Strategy at Fanatics, Nitin’s systems-level approach and strategic vision are working to make high-performance logistics more accessible to businesses worldwide.
Both Ends of the Business Spectrum
Nitin brings a unique vantage point to each operation he works on. He has operated at both ends of the spectrum, from Fortune 1 companies to fast-scaling mid-sized businesses. To this end, Nitin understands what it takes to drive logistics innovation in vastly different contexts.
At global giants like Walmart and Wayfair, Nitin managed complex transformations involving hundreds of millions of packages, nationwide delivery networks, and billion-dollar partnerships.
Meanwhile, at mid-sized and high-growth companies like OnTrac and Shopify, Nitin helped design scalable systems, navigate resource constraints, and facilitate rapid growth, often starting from scratch or during periods of hyper-growth.
Enterprise Insight, Startup Precision
Nitin’s tenures with institutions such as Walmart, Wayfair, and OnTrac informed his unique ability to translate billion-dollar strategies into scrappy, scalable models for Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs). He strives to help SMBs compete with the big players through his work.
Nitin has invaluable insight into large companies’ playbooks to gain cost advantages, improve delivery speed, and build customer loyalty. Therefore, he applies that knowledge to level the playing field for small and mid-sized businesses. Whether optimizing fulfillment footprints, deploying micro-fulfillment centers, or creating more innovative S&OP processes, Nitin helps SMBs compete more effectively in a competitive market.
The Amazon Challenge
While working with Walmart, Nitin tackled the economic puzzle of fast shipping without the volume density. This led to him pioneering the launch of Walmart’s NextDay, which has since evolved into Walmart+. These programs aim to compete with Amazon’s 1-day and 2-day free shipping options. To do this, Nitin needed to increase delivery speed under sparse circumstances.
He ultimately designed innovative and efficient logistics strategies, prioritizing customer experience while maintaining financial responsibility. This meant finding the right balance between delivery speed and cost economics through optimized inventory placement, zone skipping, and ground transportation models that avoided expensive air networks.
The resulting program, now called Walmart+, became so successful that the brand currently runs a series of ads for the service starring one of Hollywood’s most in-demand talents, Walton Goggins.
Tech as a Multiplier
In recent years, AI has become an essential tool for business prediction and analysis.AI, automation, and analytics improve forecast accuracy and cost efficiency in high-stakes logistics environments. To capitalize on these tools, Nitin doesn’t just stay on top of AI trends; he actively integrates them into operations in ways that reduce costs, increase speed, and enhance service. This includes advanced techniques like Gradient Boosting methods that significantly lower MAPE in forecasting, and Reinforcement Learning models that enable smarter, more efficient routing decisions.
Speaking and Thought Leadership
Throughout his career, Nitin has accumulated extensive expertise in network design and optimal network planning. Now, he isn’t just using that experience to drive scalable, high-performance logistics strategies across businesses of all sizes; he’s also striving to pass on the knowledge he has acquired
Nitin has written numerous articles covering business and scale-related subjects, unveiling many of his techniques in published works such as SDC Exec, International Journal for Supply Chain Management,andSupply Chain Management Review.
Additionally, Nitin speaks publicly at conferences, including the Home Delivery World conference. There, he participated in an expert panel on optimal warehouse network design. Over 300 retailers and more than 5,000 supply chain experts attended the conference.
Vision Forward
For Nitin Natesh Kumar, the goal is to give the next generation of e-commerce brands the same logistics expertise that corporate giants have had. Over the next few years, he aims to help small and medium-sized e-commerce companies compete with the big players by providing them with the same level of strategic thinking, advanced analytics, and scalable logistics solutions.
By bridging the gap between innovation and execution, Nitin aims to help these businesses unlock growth through smarter networks, optimized fulfillment, last-mile operations, and AI, a capability previously reserved for only the largest companies.
