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Ravi Kumar S, appointed CEO of Cognizant in January 2023, is responsible for guiding the company’s strategic direction. He emphasizes a client-first culture, sustainable growth, and enhancing shareholder value. A seasoned leader, Ravi has extensive expertise in digital transformation, technology, analytics, and consulting. Before joining Cognizant, he served as the President of Infosys, where he led global services and built key practices. He has also held senior positions at PwC, Oracle, and Sapient, and began his career as a nuclear scientist. Additionally, Ravi serves on various influential boards, focusing on promoting innovation and strengthening US-India relations.
Ravi Kumar S started his illustrious career, with a strong academic foundation - a Bachelor's degree in Engineering from Shivaji University and an MBA from the prestigious Xavier Institute of Management, India. He began his professional journey as a nuclear scientist at the esteemed Bhabha Atomic Research Center, showcasing exceptional analytical prowess and problem-solving skills. This unique blend of technical expertise and business acumen laid the groundwork for his ascension to leadership roles in the technology and services sectors, where he has consistently demonstrated his ability to drive growth and innovation.
Ravi Kumar S successfully transitioned from a scientific background to a distinguished corporate career, beginning as a Senior Consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He subsequently held key leadership positions at Cambridge Technology Partners and Oracle, driving technology and process transformations. In 2002, he joined Infosys, where he excelled in various leadership roles, including Global Head of Insurance, Cards, and Payments, and played a pivotal role in the company's global services expansion.
In January 2023, Ravi Kumar S took the helm as CEO of Cognizant, spearheading strategic growth initiatives, client-centric programs, and long-term shareholder value creation. Under his visionary leadership, Cognizant has reinforced its position as a global leader in technology and digital transformation services, driving innovation and excellence in the industry.
Cognizant's AI solutions drive innovation across industries, automating processes, enhancing decision-making, and optimizing operations. From AI-powered customer support to visual intelligence and seamless model migration, Cognizant enables scalable, impactful transformation.
AI Development: Leveraging intelligent models for process automation, trend prediction, and enhanced business outcomes is at the heart of Cognizant's AI development solutions. In fact, by putting AI at scale, businesses optimize their operations and improve decision-making and competitive positions in their market space.
Implementing Visual Intelligence: With visual intelligence solutions, pictures and videos can be turned into structured data to help organizations analyze and predict results. Businesses become more operationally efficient in terms of decision-making as well, both in the health and retail industries, among others.
Model Migration: Cognizant specializes in large-scale AI/ML model migrations to cloud environments, ensuring smooth transitions for both models and analytical workloads. This service optimizes cloud resources while maintaining operational integrity, giving businesses the flexibility to scale their AI capabilities.
AI Integration: Cognizant is working with customers to apply AI solutions to the hardest business problems. It then shares case studies that provide real-world examples of where AI is making a difference, ensuring data privacy for large pharmaceutical companies to saving millions in fraud prevention for global banks.
Customer Experience Navigator: Use AI-based conversational bots to make the customer experience even more effective. This enables customer service automation for delivering contextual, frictionless experiences that enhance engagement, increase satisfaction, and optimize workflows to drive better business outcomes.
Enterprise Knowledge Navigator: AI for comprehensive knowledge management. This tool enables semantic search, unlocking insights and accelerating information discovery to support faster, data-driven decision-making and enhance organizational intelligence.
Process Optimizer: Use AI-driven automation to streamline operations and improve productivity. This initiative optimizes business processes, reducing manual effort, enhancing efficiency, and driving operational excellence across various workflows.
Development Lifecycle Navigator: Empower developers with AI-driven tools to enhance productivity and improve code quality. This initiative accelerates development cycles, streamlines workflows, and fosters collaboration, enabling faster innovation and smoother project execution.
Data Engineering Navigator: Automate and streamline data engineering tasks with generative AI. This initiative provides recommendations for best practices, improving data pipeline efficiency and accuracy, and helping businesses manage complex data workflows with ease.
Neuro AI Adoption: Accelerate generative AI adoption with Cognizant's Neuro AI platform. This service offers flexible, secure, and scalable solutions, guiding clients from identifying use cases to fully operationalizing generative AI, maximizing value across industries.
Strategic Partnerships: Cognizant collaborates with trusted tech leaders to deliver seamless, integrated solutions that drive competitive advantage. By combining cutting-edge cloud, AI, and emerging technologies, these partnerships enable businesses to scale and innovate faster.
Ravi Kumar S made headlines in 2023 with a staggering compensation package of $22.5 million. This substantial payout underscored his visionary leadership and strategic expertise. Notably, Kumar's remuneration included one-time performance stock units and a cash sign-on bonus, reflecting his exceptional vision for the company.
Despite Cognizant's revenue dipping to $19.4 billion, Kumar's leadership and strategic acumen were highlighted as key strengths. Interestingly, his compensation led to a significant pay ratio of 1647:1 compared to Indian employees, sparking widespread attention and debate.
Under Ravi Kumar S' leadership, Cognizant has achieved a remarkable turnaround, marked by impressive deal bookings of $26.9 billion and a 16% year-over-year growth. A key driver of this success has been Ravi's strategic emphasis on large deal acquisitions, which surged 28% in the first quarter of his tenure.
Ravi's growth strategy has also harnessed the power of generative AI and operational efficiencies, yielding significant profitability gains and boosting employee morale. With a clear vision focused on innovation and global expansion, Ravi is propelling Cognizant forward, solidifying its position as a leader in the rapidly evolving IT services landscape.
Cognizant is currently entangled in various high-profile legal battles, spanning intellectual property infringement, workplace discrimination, tax controversies, and corporate espionage allegations.
Legal Case: Infosys has filed a counter lawsuit against Cognizant, alleging that the company and its CEO, Ravi Kumar S, misused trade secrets and employed unfair tactics to thwart the launch of Infosys' healthcare platform, Infosys Helix. This lawsuit follows an earlier claim by a Cognizant subsidiary, which accused Infosys of stealing proprietary information related to its healthcare software. Infosys is seeking damages and the invalidation of restrictive agreements imposed by Cognizant.
Salary Controversy Clarified: Cognizant clarified that the Rs 2.52 lakh fresher salary posted was for non-engineering graduates. The company defended its compensation strategy, saying that it offers competitive pay to engineering graduates and recent increments.
Workplace Discrimination: A US court has declared Cognizant guilty of workplace discrimination against its non-Indian employees, with a bias for H-1B visa-holding Indians. Punitive damages have been ordered to be awarded to the injured plaintiffs.
NDAA Controversy: Cognizant sued Infosys for allegedly misusing proprietary information obtained under a Non-Disclosure and Access Agreement (NDAA). Cognizant claimed Infosys used sensitive data from TriZetto’s software to develop competing products, violating the NDAA terms.
Lawsuit Over Mental Health: Ex-Cognizant employees filed a lawsuit against the company, stating that content moderation work for Facebook led to mental health damages and raises concerns over the psychological toll of such work.
FCPA Controversy: Cognizant Technology Solutions agreed to pay $25 million to settle FCPA violations for bribing a Tamil Nadu government official in 2014. Two executives, Gordon Coburn and Steven Schwartz, were charged for authorizing and covering up bribes.
Tax Controversy: The Madras High Court has temporarily restrained a tax demand of Rs. 9403.09 crore related to the buyback dividend distribution tax issue of Cognizant Technology's Rs. 19,000 crore buyback.
Legal Battle Controversy: The legal battle between Wipro, Infosys, and Cognizant revolves around a series of executive departures and allegations of corporate espionage. Senior leaders left Wipro and Infosys for Cognizant, sparking tensions and fueling disputes over intellectual property and competitive advantage.
Cognizant Vs Wipro: Cognizant has settled a non-compete lawsuit filed by Wipro against its CFO Jatin Dalal. The settlement includes an amount of $505,087 or around ₹4 crore.
