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Connecting and collaborating with people is a great stress buster

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DQI Bureau
New Update

Ashok Sethi, CIO at Sapient, drives the company's IT and infrastructure groups and is part of Sapient's Global Shared Services' leadership team. Sethi has over 20 years of consulting experience, having worked with the biggest consulting companies, where he provided direction and architectural leadership on key strategic initiatives. In an interview to Dataquest, Sethi ponders about his tech journey.

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Journey So Far

I feel there are two key aspects that have influenced me-people and technology. The intrinsic qualities at Sapeint-exudes a philosophy of client orientation that permeates across the organization, and its focus on creativity and innovative thinking and above all, the focus on enabling people to succeed, drawn me towards Sapient.

Pillars of Strength

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My family, who have been a guiding light and supportive of my decisions. My teachers for their encouragement; professional fraternity for recognizing my abilities as well as providing opportunities to expand my horizon; and above all my mentors, who coached me to overcome career limiting decisions.

Initial Days

I started my career during the mainframe era, but we now use higher computing power/capacity in handheld/mobile devices, which is amazing. Technology evolution cycle has changed from years to days!

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Technology Today

There is a paradigm shift of experience through collaboration, social media, and e/m-commerce. Today, technology has become pervasive that our lives are immersed in it, which clouds our judgment between professional and personal life. I believe it is just the beginning... and the anticipation of what's next is fascinating.

 

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If Not IT

If not for IT, I would have strived to become an astrophysicist. From a very young age, I was fascinated by science; read books written by authors like HG Wells, Arthur C Clarke, Isaac Asimov and watched TV shows and movies such as ‘star trek' and ‘star wars'. Learning about Apollo missions, Viking missions and spy satellites was a passion. I still keep myself abreast with the advancements in this field.

Pursuing Hobbies

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I enjoy swimming and playing golf. During school and college days, I played various sports such as cricket and soccer. Being a global CIO, it is relatively difficult to take out time for outdoor activities, though I spend time doing fun activities with my family during the weekends. I prefer quiet evenings with a book to read and listening to light music.

IT IS POWERFUL

It has been a long journey for an IT function to gain respect within an enterprise. It is imperative for the executive leadership of any enterprise to realize its strategic value to business. I believe that the best part of IT decision making is to advice, influence, and enable business to innovate and transform by adopting technologies for higher value creation.

Right decisions

It is crucial to make right decisions wherein you align IT investments with business strategy to achieve common goals. Every CIO has to take a pragmatic and pro-active approach in educating, translating, and communicating technology and its applicability in businesses for quicker and sustained adoption. It is crucial for the CIO to understand the business needs, both current and latent, and articulate services and solutions by leveraging technology.

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