Learning from new roles with Janakiraman (Jani) Srinivasan

In this episode, Janakiraman Srinivasan, known as Jani - an IT industry veteran, in conversation with Shiv shares 

• His childhood days in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu
• His Bachelors from REC Trichy and Masters from IIT Madras and getting into Wipro as a campus recruitee as Employee # 3 
• His father’s role in getting him good education
• The experience of being among the first employees in a newly launched company in a truly entrepreneurial environment
• Setting up an R&D team and activity in Bangalore and then setting up a factory in Mysore
• How they needed to dismantle the door, to get the first computer out
• The significance of bonds with colleagues
• The early culture at Wipro that stressed on many core values
• His experience in transitioning across various roles - from technical to business responsibilities
• Setting up a system integration or engineering group
• Wanting to move base to Chennai for personal reasons, taking up a role of a field specialist for the southern region
• Taking up the role of a regional field engineering manager, as the person playing that role moved on
• The transition to an individual contributor to leading a 50 member team and manage the business operations
• Becoming the product manager for the micro systems [PCs], that was a volume, low margin business that still needed superlative customer support experience
• Around 1991, being ‘elected’ to become the R&D head, when the then head took up a role to set up Wipro Systems 
• Launching the Product Engineering Services business to take the R&D expertise to customers
• Around 94-95, when quality standards were becoming more popular and mandatory, becoming CEO of Global R&D 
• Growing the R&D team from about 350 to 2200 persons

In part 2, we hear Jani’s story with mindtree and beyond.

Janakiraman Srinivasan is currently the Chairman of Nuvepro Technologies, a startup in Cloud Technologies and also President of Indo Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (IJCCI) - Karnataka. 

Prior to above, Janakiraman was the President & CTO of Mindtree Ltd, and was one of the Co-Founder and Board Member too. He served Mindtree from 1999 to 2014. 

Prior to Mindtree, Janakiraman served as the Chief Executive of Global R&D Unit of Wipro where he started his career as one among first five employees in 1980. 

Janakiraman was one of the Co-Founder of India Semiconductor Association (ISA) in 2002 and served for six years in its executive council, and later as its Chairman and Advisor too. 

Janakiraman did his BE at Regional Engineering College - Trichi (1973-78) and MTech from IIT-Chennai (1978-80). He is a Distinguished Alumni of REC for his Entrepreneurial Excellence. 

Janakiraman has served the board of Yokogawa India Ltd till March 2019 for four years. Currently a Board Member in startups Nuvepro Technologies, Innohub Technologies, Sanohub Technologies and Netra Accelerator Foundation. He is actively involved in promoting startups and entrepreneurial environment in Karnataka.

Jani may be contacted at janiuma @ gmail.com