- What is your core strength as a leader?
I’ve had a very diverse design experience that has become core to what I do today. I spent many years dabbling in graphic design, textiles, book publishing and online advertising/brand building before jumping into user experience design. So when I sit with my team and review work, they know this feedback is coming from someone who’s worked in the trenches. When I talk to clients, I’m able to engage with them at multiple levels. Overall, it enables me to see the big picture and make decisions based on that.
- What kind of major decisions have you taken that have changed the future of the organization?
I have been focused on bringing value to our customers which means getting my team to solve business problems using design-thinking, to look at the service landscape and re-imagine that space with digital interventions. This has been an interesting change in thought and approach.
What makes this journey even more interesting is partnering with great clients and encouraging my team to have fun along the way, while learning. While, it’s hard to predict the future, the decisions to go strategic and follow through, has definitely impacted the mindset of both my team and our clients.
- What are your views on the growth of Indian IT market landscape?
From a design standpoint, the good thing for ThoughtWorks India is that we don’t need to “sell” design to our clients anymore. The market has matured. Customer experience, product innovation and interactive design have been the buzzwords for sometime and are now recognized as ThoughtWorks’ specialized offerings.
If you look at the trends, everyone from Facebook to Accenture has been merging with or acquiring a design partner and that clearly speaks volumes about the significance of design not just in the Indian landscape, but the world over. That said, some of our most strategic work on design has been for our Indian clients and that makes me very excited to be working in this market.
