Gopal heads the Centre of Excellence for Data Analytics at the Centre for Railway Information Systems, the IT arm of Indian Railways (IR). He currently leads the enterprise Data Analytics, Master Data Management, and Data lake initiatives of IR. He has been instrumental in starting the analytics journey on IR and has also authored its analytics, and data strategy. An IRTS officer of the 1998 Indian Civil Services Examination batch, he has worked at various senior positions such as the head of operations and sales of Mumbai suburban system of Western Railway, and the country head of petroleum rail-logistics. He has designed algorithms for pricing on empty backhaul freight routes, predicting freight terminal congestion, and optimising seat capacity for reserved trains. He holds a Bachelor of Technology from IIT Delhi, an MBA from FMS- Delhi University, and a PhD from the Singapore University of Technology and Design. He was a visiting researcher at the Intelligent Transportation Systems Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Centre for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transport, and Urban Planning, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.