CxO of the Week: Dr. Nataraj. N, Managing Director & President, AutonomIQ

CxO of the Week: With several years of expertise in the IT industry, Dr. Nataraj recently joined AutonomIQ INc (Fastest Growing Bay Area Startup & Based & on No Code & No maintenance Autonomous Test platform & already its developer community product has been used by 500,000 testers worldwide) and as Co-founder President & Managing Director. Earlier he was with KPIT, where he was the Global CIO, CISO and the Head of the IMS & Application support Business. As the head of the IMS & Security business, he was instrumental in growing the practice to 10% of their annual revenues from Greenfield.

Prior to KPIT, Nataraj was Global CIO, Senior Vice President & part of leadership in Hexaware, Mindtree (Aztec), Ericsson, Hughes & Wipro. Customers respect him for his innovative business models, depth of technology and flawless execution. He is cumulatively headed & created 300+ Mn $ business. He is a quite fast learner & changed his role and always set an example to his peer groups. With the current technology transformation, he is rightly position to drive any transformational role.

He had also been associated with SVP (Philanthropy Org), as one of the partners along with former Microsoft India Chairman. He was the founder President of CIO KLUB Bangalore (more than 500 CIOs are part of the CIO KLUB). He has been chosen amongst the top 30 professionals for his contribution to the industry & honored with Mahatma Gandhi Leadership award in British Parliament. He has been recently conferred with Hind Ratna from Bibek Debroy, Chairman Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India He has also received a Doctorate in IT management.

Your top priority while making decisions to improve tech infra in your organization?

My top priority was and will always be how do I improve customer experience and that’s one of the key parameters to improve tech infra. How the business leverages technology is as important as where and when.

Challenges you face in driving digital transformation?

Fortunately, I have been quite successful in driving transformation. One of the success mantras is always to talk about business benefits and functional leaders to be part of driving the decisions. Sometimes you do get some challenges with some of the people to adapt to changes but if you take functional leaders into confidence then they drive this for you. Several times leading media house (Cybermedia, IDG & Others) named him as Transformational CIO.

Do you feel that freshers in the industry come with only basic knowledge but don’t have right skills to fulfill job requirements? If yes, your suggestion to students and colleges?

Yes, that’s quite true except for some of the leading institutes. That’s one of the reasons only one-fifth of passed out engineers get a job and others struggle. Institutes should modify some of the courses to meet current challenges and technologies., already many leading institutes take industry leaders on their advisory board and they run regular curriculum to bridge the gap.

What’s your mantra to become successful in life?

Be close to business and customers. I am one of the few CIOs who have always been part of the senior leadership team and handled a large business portfolio and team and also part of the board for the last 18 years.

What would you like to give back to the society?

I had been part of SVP (Social Venture Partners) along with Ex Microsoft Chairman Ravi Venkesan, where we have worked on a couple of social & NGO projects. I have been part of institutes mentoring them to bridge the gap between industry and education institutes. I have also been mentoring a couple of CXOs and professionals to achieve their goals.

Your favorite book and what are you reading now?

My favourite book is always Bhagavad Gita and I keep reading and each time I read I learn something new. At present, I am reading a book called ‘ Measure What Matters’ by John Doerr.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

Singing Songs, Playing Tennis & Golf.

Achievements (Awards & Recognitions)

Hind Ratna Award (One of the prestigious Civilian awards by Dr. Bibek Debroy (Chairman Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India on 25th Jan 2019
Mahatma Gandhi award in the British Parliament for excellent achievement in the IT field.
Hall of Fame – CIO ID award (7 times in a row to receive an award from IDG Media)
Top 50 Best World CIO award from Information week in 2011
India Best CIO award from Times Editor.

PC Quest Best Implementation award (Three times in a row)
Young Turk CNBC award
Best Cloud Implementation Award from Microsoft Corporation

Experience

28+ years, Electronics Engineering & followed by Doctorate (h.c.)in IT Management.

7-8 Times part of the part of the Imminent panel member in NDTV Profit & CNBC and articles published all leading Magazines & Dailes like ET, Times and others.