Sincere Thanks & Gratitude

It's my final hurrah at Cognizant and while there are too many people to thank, I would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following ... because as with political change, TL done right often takes a village.

All things Cognizant start with co-founder and former CEO Francisco D’Souza, who lent unwavering support to our thought leadership program from the outset. Frank built an empowering, hard-charging workplace culture underpinned by unrelenting client-centricity, tight cross-disciplinary collaboration and mutual respect across the organization. And then there is Malcolm Frank, who provided a supportive environment and intellectually stimulating vision for thought leadership’s art of the possible. MF made clear that our success meant winning in the marketplace of ideas. Working with Malcolm on seminal reports such as “The Future of Work” and “The SMAC Stack,” and with him and our Cognizant Center for the Future of Work (CFoW) colleagues Ben Pring and Paul Roehrig on two best-selling business books — “Code Halos” and “What To Do When Machines Do Everything” (among numerous and sundry other works) — cemented Cognizant’s reputation as a refreshingly clear and clairvoyant voice in an IT services marketplace overrun with copycat, me-too PoVs.

Jamming, ideating and shaping TL with others from the CFoW — Rob Brown, Manie Bahl, Euan Davis, Michael Cook, Desmond Dickerson, Caroline Styr, Keahn Gary, Eduardo Plastino, Duncan Roberts and Karen McCall — stand out as highlight moments in my publishing career. I also had the good fortune of working with numerous brilliant minds throughout my time at Cognizant. Among them (in no particular order): Allen Shaheen, Gajen Kandiah, Sanjiv Gossain, Bret Greenstein, Jason Kodish, Raja Bavani, Mahesh Natarajan, Prasad Satyavolu, Amit Anand, Philippe Dintrans, Lata Varghese, Nagaraja Srivatsan, Anand Chandramouli, Sam Pakrashi, Anbu Muppidathi, Babak Hodjat, Rob Asen, Mark Taylor, Vineet Kapur, Amresh Singh, Jerry Smith, James Jeude, Matt Smith, Poornima Ramaswamy, Bill Shea, Trish Birch, Brian Williams, Bryan Hill, Mark Greenlaw, Chris Blatchly, Burkhardt Blechschmidt, Agil Francis, Michael Clifton, Kaushik Bhaumik and Dharmesh Mistry.?Thanks much to Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, Harsh Kabra, Jodi Sorenson, Rick Lacroix and Gerry Moran, Jay Moore, as well as our global field marketing team, who made sure our PoVs were seen and heard far and wide by the people who mattered most, worldwide.

And of course, our program could not have succeeded without the sage counsel and contributions of Gary Beach, Vinnie Mirchandani, Margaret Schweer, Vanessa DiMauro and Bruce Rogow. Moreover, big hugs to the team that helped showcase our thought leadership at Cognizant Community — Jennifer Schelling and Rebecca Mazur.

I am eternally indebted to my clever and creative TL team (April Vadnais, Glen Nelson, Sagarika Kamath, Rajeshwer Chigullapalli, Akhil Tandulwadikar, Jayashree Ramanujam and Arun Shekar, Aadeesh Balodi and Nikitha G., as well as alumni Preethy Ann Kochummen and Nik Jasuja). Much love goes to our extended family of superb wordsmiths, editors, designers and videographers (Mary Brandel, Mark Baven, Sharon Watson, Deb Asbrand, Bob Scheier, Lauren Paul, Steve Ulfelder, Jolene Dobbin, Mary McBride, Brenda Lewis, Diana Fitter, Michele Anderson, Laura D’Eliseo, Bill Brandel, Bill Darmon and Mont Fennel), as well as alumni contributors (Blake Snow, Jessica Schindhelm and Martha Schindhelm). Lastly, special thanks goes out to Raj Mittal and Venu Venkateswaran for keeping everything copasetic.

Among my most rewarding endeavors was our partnership with The World Economic Forum. Kudos to Mara Stefan for helping build a robust WEF TL platform and relationship, and to Shameka Young, Jennifer Green-Godette, Sophia Mendelssohn, Anil Cheriyan and numerous other Cognizant colleagues who always rolled up their sleeves and dug deep to help tackle the globe’s most pressing challenges, spanning the ethical use of AI and cybersecurity, through social justice and environmental sustainability. Kudos to the WEF’s Alex Brown for keeping us on track!

I know this goes without saying but our program couldn't have succeeded without all of you!