Think Flat

Aditya Nath Jha heads the global branding function at Infosys. He started his career in the creative department of an ad agency and went on to work at Lowe, DY&R, Ambience, FCB and O&M. He won over 50 awards for his work in print, radio, and television. At a time when TV commercials changed every season, Aditya created two of the longest running TV commercials in India: one ran for 8 years without a change, and the other ran for 11 years.

Aditya then switched sides and headed the marketing function of a product startup. He was part of the core team that conceptualized Talisma, an e-CRM product, which he launched in the US.

On the day the NASDAQ crashed by 605 points, Aditya started a company. It focused on instruction architecture in the education space trying to create a model that maximizes the learning of a student even without the presence of good teachers. The model worked but the business failed.

Aditya has also written two television serials and contributes regularly as a columnist to Outlook, one of India’s leading newsmagazines. He has a degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT.

R. Arun Kumar is the Head of Worldwide Sales for Strategic Global Sourcing (SGS) deals at Infosys Technologies Ltd. The SGS team generates and manages large outsourcing deals and opportunities greater than $50 mn TCV for Infosys and the Infosys group companies. Arun has over 13 years of experience in business-technology alignment, IT and BPO services, telecommunications, software product development, and consumer goods. He has worked in leadership roles in established transnational corporations as well as startups.

Arun graduated from IIT-Bombay and has an MBA from IIM-Calcutta.

Balaji heads the Flat World marketing initiative at Infosys. He started his career in 1993 at MICO (now Bosch) as part of the company’s software group. He joined Infosys Technologies later that year and worked for leading clients in Switzerland and the US. In 1998, Balaji left Infosys to pursue his MBA at UCLA. Subsequently, he worked at a startup in the San Francisco Bay Area during the dot-com era. In 2001, he joined Microsoft in Redmond as part of the company’s product marketing group, where he was responsible for Product Planning of Microsoft Content Management Server 2002. He later worked as a Business Manager, responsible for both SharePoint Server and Content Management Server. He moved back to India in 2004 and returned to join Infosys’ Corporate Marketing group.

In his current role, Balaji is also responsible for Microsoft solutions and alliance marketing (see blog) as well as marketing a new business initiative.

Balaji holds a bachelors degree in Electronics and Communication from the University of Mysore and an MBA in Marketing and Entrepreneurial Studies from the University of California Los Angeles.

Balaji leads a team chartered with developing best-in-class solutions that combine industry process knowledge with cutting-edge technology to address critical business challenges across the financial services industry. He has been involved in numerous client engagements that aligned technology initiatives to deliver better and quicker business benefits through a strong focus on business process redesign and outsourcing.

Balaji has earlier served as Client Relationship Manager and Senior Principal Consultant at Infosys. He is an invitee to Infosys’ Management Council.

Balaji holds a Bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT Madras and an MBA from IIM Lucknow. His current interests include Web 2.0, innovations in the area of customer experience, and the regulatory environment of the financial services industry.

Chandra Shekar Kakal, in his decade-long journey with Infosys, has served in various capacities and spearheaded several key initiatives that have contributed to the company’s success. As part of the founding members of the Enterprise Solutions group at Infosys, Kakal helped kick-start the company’s Oracle ERP practice. He restructured the group to offer end-to-end solutions in Supply Chain, Human Capital Management and Enterprise Application Integration. Under his leadership, the group has grown to be the largest and best-managed unit at Infosys and has won industry-wide recognition. Kakal helped establish partnerships with package vendors such as SAP, Oracle, Sterling Commerce and TIBCO, and participates in the steering committee meetings of clients’ ERP implementation programs. He has also helped develop Infosys’ CRM practice and Microsoft Dynamics practices.

Jitin Goyal is the Vice President of Banking and Capital Markets, Infosys, Europe. Prior to this, he was the Head of Sales for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Jitin has been the driving force behind Infosys’ expansion in EMEA. His team established Infosys’ operations in more than 12 countries and achieved revenues of more than US$ 1 billion in the last eight to nine years. Under his leadership, Infosys has signed large deals, including a five-year global sourcing contract with ABN AMRO.

Jon is part of the senior management team at the Global Banking & Capital Markets Group at Infosys. He is responsible for several large client relationships in financial services. With over twenty years of experience in securities, IT and business transformation, Jon has advised financial markets and commercial banking clients in the areas of operations and business strategy, technology, risk management and accounting and financial control. He has managed large implementation projects for trading systems and led the compliance, operations and IT initiatives of a European bank that transitioned itself to a US broker/dealer.

Prior to Infosys, Jon held senior leadership roles in firms including Gartner, IBM Global Services, Goldman Sachs and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Jon is an MBA from Fordham University and a BS from New York University. He is also a CPA in NY State and holds a NYSE Series 7/63 license.

Madhu has over 19 years of experience in defining strategic solutions for a variety of clients in Japan, Europe, and North America. She is currently based in Bellevue, WA, USA and manages select strategic account relationships in North America for the Retail and Consumer Packaged Goods practice at Infosys. Madhu has led large mission-critical consulting engagements for definition, modification and transformation of key business practices through process and technology improvements - specializing in the Retail and CPG industry in areas including merchandising, e-commerce and other consumer-centric solutions.

Nandan Nilekani took over as the Co-Chairman of the Board of Infosys Technologies Limited on June 22, 2007. Previously, he held the office of CEO (since March 2002). He has also served as COO and has been a director on the company’s board since its inception in 1981.

Nandan became one of the youngest entrepreneurs to join 20 global leaders on the prestigious World Economic Forum Foundation Board.

He is listed as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine, 2006. Nandan received the Fortune’s ‘Asia’s Businessmen of the Year 2003’ award and named among the ‘World’s most respected business leaders’ in 2002 and 2003, in a global survey by Financial Times and PricewaterhouseCoopers. In 2005, Nandan was awarded the prestigious Joseph Schumpeter prize for innovative services in field of economy, economic sciences and politics.

Nandan is the Vice-Chairman of The Conference Board, a member of ASPEN Institute’s Business and Society Advisory Board and serves on the London Business School’s Asia Pacific Regional Advisory Board.

In 2006, Nandan was conferred the Padma Bhushan, one of the highest civilian honors awarded by the Government of India.

Naveen leads the go-to-market for Think Flat and is a core member of the Infosys 'Flat World' initiative team.

Prior to joining Infosys, he was part of the startup team of one of the top IT services companies in India and headed the company’s Malaysian operations. Naveen started his career with one of the leading automobile groups in India, where he was Head - Product Management. He has rich experience in Sales, Brand Management and New Product Introduction. He was part of the company’s corporate strategy team and pioneered the concept of communities around products in the automobile sector in India.

As a Group Manager in Corporate Marketing in Infosys Technologies, Richa heads go-to-market for Think Flat and is a core member of the Infosys 'flat world' initiative team. She also leads go-to-market for the Infosys telecom business unit.

Prior to joining Infosys, she was a management consultant with Bain and Company in San Francisco. At Bain she consulted primarily with hi-tech companies in many areas of their strategy including growth strategy, corporate strategy, new market entry, new product assessment, among others. She holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California at Berkeley, USA.

Sandeep Dadlani is responsible for key strategic relationships in North America and has more than a decade’s experience in operations, product management and IT consulting. He has helped several large retailers and CPG companies execute key business-technology initiatives and adopt Infosys’ Global Delivery Model.

Prior to Infosys, Sandeep managed the transition of key back-end business and IT processes of the Citigroup’s captive outsourcing center in India.

As a Principal Architect in Infosys, Shashi leads the Pervasive Solutions Practice in North America. He is responsible for technology strategy and client engagement in the Wireless Sensor Solutions space. Shashi has over a decade of experience in creating business value through technology innovation in the wireless space. His thought leadership in the wireless space includes the 7-Layer Reference Model for a Pervasive Enterprise and pending patents in the area of RFID integration. A speaker globally in Wireless, Mobile Computing and RFID, Shashi is an alumnus of IIT-Bombay and is based in Dallas, TX.

For half of his 30-year IT industry career, Stephen Lane has been involved in outsourcing in various roles on both the vendor delivery and client sides of the table. Before joining Infosys in 2004, he was Research Vice President at a leading industry analyst firm and one of the first analysts to focus exclusively on the global services sector. In his current role, Stephen works with some of Infosys’ leading clients to research, identify, document, and share global sourcing best practices. He holds a master’s degree in International Studies, with a focus on East Asia, from Georgetown University.

Steve Pratt has over 20 years of experience in business consulting. His primary areas of expertise are helping clients improve the value of their relationships with customers, and helping them become more competitive. Steve has an established track record of growing innovative consulting practices that excel in client service.

Steve was Senior Partner with Deloitte Consulting where he spent 12 years. He founded and led Deloitte's CRM practice. Prior to Deloitte, he was with Booz, Allen & Hamilton.

In 2003, Steve was elected as Top 25 Consultant in the World by Consulting Magazine.

Siva leads a team that develops best-in-class technology-enabled solutions for the retail, consumer goods and logistics industries. He has led numerous client engagements that leveraged technology to provide innovative business solutions. A member of the business unit’s management council, he also oversees the Industry Solutions Program, market development and innovation for solutions developed for these industries.

Siva holds an engineering degree from IIT Madras and is pursuing an executive MBA degree from the SMU-Cox School of Business. His areas of interest comprise leveraging Web 2.0, systems dynamics, advanced analytics, ubiquitous computing and SOA to achieve competitive advantage.

Venky is responsible for global strategic relationships for fortune 20 client spread across the globe. He has over 14 years experience in business-technology alignment, IT services, client management and IT consulting. He has worked with several fortune 500 Infosys clients across Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas across multiple industries including logistics, financial services, banking and the insurance industry.

Dr. Vivekanand P Kochikar has published widely, and serves on the editorial advisory boards and review panels for several international journals and conferences. He has about 20 years of experience spanning industrial and academic research, but is convinced that his learning has barely begun.