My Cognizant Watch has ended!

After 17 years 4 months… a great, exciting, and very rewarding chapter of my professional career has come to a close... My COGNIZANT WATCH has ended!!!

There are so many wonderful memories and so many leaders whose contributions / influence I have to acknowledge…. my first week in Chennai as an upstart BA when I walked into Sumithra’s Office asking for work and she got me going on this beautiful Cognizant journey… run time grooming from impressive leaders like DC, Nat… the early days of DCG managing tons of client visits... a chance to work for the largest US bank and learning the passion for work from Lux… moving to US at precisely 3 day notice… building expertise in US Mortgage Industry under Maya Sreekumar, Ketan Parekh and delivering several core Lending projects… a stint back in Pune managing the Consumer Lending Consulting practice under Sudhakar… Back to US in senior Consulting roles and picking up finer client management nuances from likes of Phillipe, getting to observe Prasad from up close… back in India with an opportunity to grow the Cognizant BFS in India & ME markets under Pradeep Hardikar, Krishna Vishwanath, Kamesh, Arun Iyer … and then finally the opportunity to step into the world of Products specifically Temenos under mentorship of Nagaraj, Sandeep Singh, leadership guidance of Jaideep, Nachiket, Sandeep Rane & Sanjiv Bambal and last but not the least the significant influence of my present manager/mentor Neeraja Krishnan.

I will remain proud of all the things we were able to achieve, be it the US growth phase, establishing ourselves in India & ME markets, and the final chapter of a phenomenally successful global partnership with #Temenos.

Thank you Cognizant for a wide canvas to paint my professional life on… Thank you for the leadership roles across Consulting, Business development, Alliances & Delivery… Thank you for the unique global exposure spanning all continents and feet on ground in close to 30 countries spanning New Zealand to Canada… thank you for the mentorship of so many leaders (I am sure I have missed several names in the above list and so apologies)… Thank you for the freedom to express myself, take my decisions and succeed/fail/learn from them… thank you for the golden opportunity that has helped me grow professionally and given me the confidence to move forward and take on a new challenge.

And finally & most importantly A BIG THANK YOU to the TEMENOS_CoE_GLOBAL@Cognizant (all past n present); my wonderful team that kept raising the bar and helped me look good all the time.

Cognizant will always remain very special to me. I would like to wish Cognizant the very best as it charts a new path under a new dynamic leadership.

As for me a new challenge awaits...

Cheers

ASHUTOSH