Senior Vice President & Head of Innovation at Cognizant Technology Solutions
Madras Area, India
- Current
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- Senior Vice President & Head of Innovation at Cognizant Technology Solutions
- Past
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- Senior Vice President & Chief Knowledge Officer at Cognizant Technology Solutions
- Vice President - Manufacturing & Logistics at Cognizant Technology Solutions
- Director - Eastern Region - T/IME/R&H/M&L at Cognizant Technology Solutions
- Account/Program Manager at a Key Media Industry Client at Cognizant Technology Solutions
- Senior Systems Analyst at TATA Consultancy Services
- Education
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- University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School
- Birla Institute of Technology and Science
- Sri Sankara Senior Secondary School, Adyar, Chennai, India
- Recommended
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5 people have recommended Sukumar - Connections
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500+
connections
- Industry
- Computer Software
Sukumar Rajagopal’s Summary
Over 21 years experience in the IT industry - highly successful in project delivery, P&L management, executive relationship building, operations management and knowledge management in consulting companies. Have extensive experience in
managing Fortune 500 clients. Able to build and sustain effective CXO-Level customer and partner relationships through excellent interpersonal and communication skills. Consistently achieved top ranked business performance.
A strategic thinker with an entrepreneurial knack for spotting opportunities – Was one of the prime movers of the ebusiness practice in Cognizant. Have helped develop several unique service offerings. Strong technically, gained skills
through hands-on management of numerous complex IT and strategic development projects. Managed delivery teams of 10 to 700 consultants and have had overall responsibility for over 2500 people in an onsite-offshore model. Have consistently demonstrated strong leadership skills by building high performance teams. Very passionate about training and mentoring team mates.
As the CKO since Jan 2006, created the Router Model of KM which has been presented at numerous KM conferences and has received critical acclaim from experts. Our KM strategy has appeared in the Economic Times, The Hindu newspapers and the Business Week magazine's blog.
Have wide-ranging interests and continuously generate a lot of ideas in many fields. Have written numerous articles in company journals and have been running a blog for the past 5 years. Blog posts have appeared on leading blogs on the
internet. Take keen interest in the community – have run fund raising drives for local charities, worked on the board of local charities.
Sukumar Rajagopal’s Specialties:
P&L and Delivery management:
Have delivered over $200MM worth of projects to Cognizant clients without any major failures.Working in the highly competitive offshore IT industry has helped me develop expertise in competitive positioning, strategic pricing and negotiations. Take keen interest in legal concepts and have negotiated several contracts. Have learnt and developed structured go-to-market strategies for approaching the market at Practice Level and Account Level.
Sukumar Rajagopal’s Experience
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Senior Vice President & Head of Innovation
Cognizant Technology Solutions
(Public Company; CTSH; Outsourcing/Offshoring industry)
February 2009 — Present (10 months)
As the Head of Innovation, my mandate is to make Innovation a consistent process across the company, something we call "Managed Innovation". Most of the work done is cultural drawing from our experience of changing the culture at Cognizant via the Cognizant 2.0 program. We use social media extensively within the organization to be an instrument of massive change.
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Senior Vice President & Chief Knowledge Officer
Cognizant Technology Solutions
(Public Company; CTSH; Outsourcing/Offshoring industry)
January 2006 — June 2009 (3 years 6 months)
As the CKO i ran the knowledge management function, the process quality function and the strategic engagements function. These are 3 key support functions in Cognizant.
During my tenure as the CKO, my team launched the groundbreaking Cognizant 2.0 (2007) and Router Model of KM (2006) and several other innovations in Process Quality, Delivery Assurance and Strategic Engagements. -
Vice President - Manufacturing & Logistics
Cognizant Technology Solutions
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; CTSH; Information Technology and Services industry)
October 2004 — December 2005 (1 year 3 months)
I managed the Manufacturing & Logistics Practice in North America, one of the fastest growing practices in Cognizant. Combined with a few Retail & Hospitality clients that I was managing, my total P&L was $100MM.
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Director - Eastern Region - T/IME/R&H/M&L
Cognizant Technology Solutions
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; CTSH; Information Technology and Services industry)
November 2000 — October 2004 (4 years )
I was in charge of the Information, Media & Entertainment, Telecom, Retail, Hospitality & Manufacturing & Logistics practices in the Eastern Region. Helped incubate these vertical practices in the Eastern Region by winning key accounts. Built CxO level relationships and functioned as the Client Partner for these accounts. Developed practice and account development plans and also rolled out a Mentoring Program for a group of 30 Account Managers from across practices in Cognizant. The P&L size was approx 35MM in 2004.
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Account/Program Manager at a Key Media Industry Client
Cognizant Technology Solutions
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; CTSH; Information Technology and Services industry)
February 1996 — November 2000 (4 years 10 months)
Served as the Program Manager for the Account and helped it grow into one of the largest clients of Cognizant at that time. Helped the client manage the 3 year multi-million dollar Y2K program covering 13MM LOC. Software went into production with just 1 severity 1 defect. Also helped the client and Cognizant team transiton into e-business or Internet platform based applications. The team was rated as one of the happiest teams in Cognizant at that time and I was recognized with the Chairman's Award in 1998 (the first time such an award was given out) for my team's stellar accomplishments.
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Senior Systems Analyst
TATA Consultancy Services
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Computer Software industry)
July 1988 — June 1995 (7 years )
Sukumar Rajagopal’s Education
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University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School
1999 , Executive Development Program 4 Weeks , 1999 — 1999
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Birla Institute of Technology and Science
B.E. (Hons). , Electrical & Electronics Engineering , 1984 — 1988
- Activities and Societies:
- Was part of the 3-member BITS Dumb Charades Team that won the Oasis inter-collegiate championships both the years (1986, 1987) in which our team participated. Won number of internal to BITS Dumb Charades competitions.
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Sri Sankara Senior Secondary School, Adyar, Chennai, India
Additional Information
Sukumar Rajagopal’s Interests:
Management Theory & Practice, Technology, Knowledge Management, Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK), Team Building, Public Speaking, Anthropology, Culture, Travelling
Sukumar Rajagopal’s Groups:
IEEE, Mensa
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TCS Alumni Network -
BITS Pilani Alumni -
Cognizant Technology Solutions -
The Indian Startup Fraternity -
Sri Sankara Senior Secondary School Alumni Foundation
Sukumar Rajagopal’s Honors:
Chairman's Award Winner in 1998 at Cognizant (the very first time this award was introduced)
Amongst the first 200 people in the world to clear IEEE Certified Software Development Professional (CSDP) exam
Have Competent Toastmaster and Competent Leader certifications from Toastmasters International
Sukumar Rajagopal’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- job inquiries
- expertise requests
- business deals
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
