On the Shoulders of Giants....

In August this year, when I was formally communicated that I was going to be nominated to the partnership evaluation process, the first person I called up was my better half Mathangi with excitement & apprehension in equal measure.

Her response with her characteristic smirk was, I hope you know, irrespective of the outcome, which I am sure will be positive, you will always be ‘needs improvement’ as a husband & a rockstar Dad. She has been my ROCK through great times, not so good times & ‘nothing is working my way’ times personally & professionally.

Amma & Appa were super cool parents, who instilled early on, that it was OK to be imperfect & fail. Amma & Appa are my real-life heroes. Amma embodied learning agility & compassion like no one else. Appa was a style bhai, who at 54 decided to quit a senior management role in a thriving public sector to start his own venture, and the driver was “I am not enjoying what I do anymore”.

I have been an underdog in the family who grew up in the shadows of an overachieving elder sister, who checked every box of making Indian parents proud, be it academics, sports, or public speaking, she aced it all. Monisha is my biggest cheer leader personally & professionally along with my maverick brother in-law Loui.

I started my career working as an IBM mainframe programmer in the Y2K era in Satyam, little did I know that big blue and my destiny would intertwine decades later. I wrote, enhanced & maintained a lot of code for a leading core banking platform, Fiserv in US before moving on to program managing large core banking transformation(s) in Europe.

One of my early mentors was Nayana, who was the chief learning officer in Satyam (She is a continuous and relentless re-inventor that it is tough to keep track of her formal roles). She shaped a lot of my thinking & pushed my boundaries during that period & continues to do even today in her own unassuming style.

In my next stint at Wipro, I learnt, learnt & learnt, defining the vertical strategy, to forging partnership(s), acquisitions, to selling & delivering large transformation program(s). I strengthened my value proposition design muscle & learnt the science of crafting go to market strategies.

Vivek was one of my trench buddies who taught me the 101 of value proposition design & the art of creating visionary power point slides to tell a compelling story.

If perfection was a person, it would have to be Sushankar or Sush as we all know him, whether bowling alley or leading client engagements, he always excelled like no one else.

In Wipro, there were four mentors who influenced my thinking in more ways than one over the years & continue to do so.

Sriram who headed the banking vertical, was an institution in himself, his ability to take big bets & his comfort in unknown unknown was noteworthy. He always had time for big ideas, you could walk into his office with any idea and were guaranteed a listen. We failed one large transformation program, were moderately successful in the second one & saw spectacular success in the third one in my early years at Wipro. Still remember Sriram in his hallmark snark told Suren & me while we were embarking on the third program, that first surgery you guys killed the patient, second one, the surgery was successful, but patient died, At least the third time, ensure the surgery is successful & patient thrives.

If “making clients successful” was a noun, it would be like Suren. His obsession of making the ecosystem work for clients was worth emulating. I learnt from him there is no good time to have a tough client conversation, if their success was our goal.

Ravi & Sudhir were two other folks in Wipro, who cemented my membership in “why did I not think like them club”. My learning was exponential working with them executing on strategic big bets in unknown-unknown areas to build capabilities for existing or new markets.

My entrepreneurial journey was due to Sriram, only he could believe that Sudhir, Sushankar, Sachin & Shankar sitting in BLR can build a FinTech value proposition for the global market. We did prove him right by coming up with a platform business model value proposition in the auto finance space which found its product market fit in South Africa & Middle east. We swam, but to the wrong blue ocean as per him ??. Due to funding challenges when the startup journey came to an abrupt halt, remember his phone call where he went on appreciating all the efforts etc to steer the conversation towards

“You learnt but did not learn fast enough”.

It would be unfair to miss out on Ron, who was one of the first thought leaders to give us and our platform a feature. Ron also taught me an important networking lesson that

"It was all about giving first before getting anything out of networking".

Thank you, Ron!???

My early mentors in IBM were Prasad & Clifford, who gave me space to succeed in financial services. I had never worked for the India market, the nuances, the scale & the complexity that India had to offer was challenging. Clifford with his hallmark humor coached me on the nuances of selling & delivering in India. Prasad early on coached me that either you make the big blue ecosystem work for you & your clients, or you will fail your clients & the ecosystem.

I got an opportunity to dabble at the intersection of complexity, scale & making unknown mundane by partnering with clients in crafting their platform business strategies, to learning the ropes of selling & delivering large scale digital transformation whilst continuing to develop & nurture my own network.

I am awe struck by the power of my sponsor Rishi’s network, in the financial services market in India. My goal is to make his network mine, did I not tell you earlier, I am comfortable in failing audacious goals ??. He embodies the IBM ethos of “being essential for your clients”.?His astute client focus is infectious.

I want to thank Kamal & Lula for their sponsorship, as their battle cry of embracing complexity & being comfortable in unknown unknown is a driver for us to push our boundaries in the India market.?

I also want to use this opportunity to thank my mentors Shail, Likhit, Gai, Shanker, Haja, Nabanita, Mayur & Santhosh.

To all my trench buddies, we together brought ideas to life, earned transformation battle scars, laughed, sulked & had a lot of fun along the way. A big thank you to Amar, Bharat, Vishwa, Ankur, Kritika, Ajit, Dibs, Divya Shamik, Geeta, Sujith, Amit, Anindita, Hemangini, Garima, Surleen, Vaibhav, Renish, Neha, Abhilasha, Anugrah, Nitumoni, Sudhanshu, Mansi, Parth, Salman, Ehson, Sandeep, Tejas, Anjali, Rajan, Ranish, Vinay, Meenakshi. ?I learn from every interaction of ours & you help me push my boundaries.

It is because of executing transformation & working for IBM India market, I met my partner in crime for #bankingonKarMa, if tenacity was a person, Mala is that person. The journey which started as a professional partnership is now a solid personal friendship despite the change in professional statuses.

I will continue walking the client corridors shaping & delivering transformation(s) as before. A big thank you to all my clients.

Indian financial services ecosystem is going through an exciting time. It will be quite busy next 24-36 months given evolving consumer needs, conducive regulatory environment & emergence of non-traditional competition in financial services.

We are IBM consulting. This is our opportunity.?