Hriday Ravindranath's Pursuit to Stay At The Heart of Change

It is often said that technology is at the heart of any business transformation. For enterprises to remain relevant and push forward, they have to keep pace with advancements in technology. That is where people like Hriday Ravindranath come in; bringing with them the ability to gauge change before others.

Today, he is the chief digital and information officer at Orange Business, a multinational business-to-business (B2B) technology firm headquartered in Paris. But his tryst with technology began long ago in his childhood home in Chennai, where sci-fi blockbusters such as Star Wars, Back to the Future and Terminator captivated his young mind.

At the age of 12, when he was gifted a second-hand computer, he made his first real foray into the world of digital possibilities. Initially, the computer was his portal to the virtual realms of Prince of Persia and Doom, and he toyed with the idea of becoming a game designer.

But it did not take him long to switch from gaming to programming, teaching himself languages like BASIC and C++. When it was time for Ravindranath to make his first major choice in life, the path to technology seemed well and truly cut out for him.

Passion + Pragmatism

The decision to get an engineering degree in computer science seemed like a natural course of action. Not only was it something Ravindranath was passionate about, but it also offered a very practical career option. “At that time, as with most Indians from middle-class families, it is kind of embedded into your head that you need to be an engineer and you need to do computer science,” recalls Ravindranath.

Soon enough, he picked up an interest in advanced mathematics and probability that led him to knock at the doors of artificial intelligence (AI). To be sure, AI was not quite the buzzword in 2006 when Ravindranath finished his MSc in AI from the University of Edinburgh. In a sense, he had an early-bird ticket to AI research that is completely revolutionising the tech world today.

But unlike most of his cohort who went into doctoral research after their Master’s, Ravindranath was keen on landing a job and entering the industry. He says, “I chose to get into industry primarily for practical reasons. I thought to myself that I need a career and that I need to become financially independent.”

That is how he ended up at Tech Mahindra’s UK operations, where he quickly rose through the ranks. Thanks to an accelerated growth programme at the IT services behemoth, Ravindranath also got a taste of leadership, something that he took to instantly.

The Leadership Leap

It was during his stint at Tech Mahindra that he got acquainted with the idea of digital transformation. By the time he was elevated to the role of IT service delivery head, he was primarily working on the tech transformation at one of his main clients: BT Group (formerly, British Telecom).

That opened the doors to the world of telecommunications. BT soon brought Ravindranath to its own turf, where he worked for more than 11 years. “I was fortunate to have an amazing career at BT. Almost every couple of years, my role kept changing and evolving. It was a really great setting that allowed me to learn and thrive,” Ravindranath says.

Initially, as the global head of IT delivery service contracts, he was responsible for a transformation budget of £20mn annually. His success took him to even greater responsibilities. Five years into his career, when his boss left for a different organisation, Ravindranath stepped into the C-Suite at BT.

“I was reporting to the CTIO [chief technology and information officer] at that time and when he quit, I got the opportunity to sort of take on that job,” he says. At the age of 33, he became one of the youngest global CTIOs in the industry.

But it was not an easy spot to fill. Ravindranath’s first challenge was to adapt to the changing practices in the tech world. It was the time when cloud infrastructure and ‘softwarisation’ of networks were disrupting the industry.

Within BT, he had to navigate through the increasing demands from the product and marketing teams, while also being mindful of the decreasing IT budget. “I needed to rebalance that equation. So, one of the big things I decided to do was build a digital strategy. I wrote a white paper, shared it with the board, and we built a greenfield stack from the ground up,” he recalls.

This meant Ravindranath was soon handed the leadership of the product team. In April 2021, he became the chief product and digital officer at BT. Within a couple of years, he was approached by Orange Business, where he continues to this day as the chief digital and information officer.

People > Technology

Throughout all these transformations, Ravindranath held on to a simple truth. “One of the things that I learned very early on, especially as a technology leader, is that driving technology change is not about technology. At its core, it’s about the people. It is about driving change that emotionally connects with people, with customers and clients, and then using technology as almost an enabler for that change”.

This is why he maintains that understanding the human aspect of change has been one of the most important learning experiences of his professional career, as well as personal life. As technology advances on a daily basis, his ring-side view as a tech leader also lets him analyse its impact on personal matters.

“I think we are fortunate to live in a generation where we get to see technology changing everything. It is changing social fabric, it is changing connectivity, it is changing how people interact and even things like education and healthcare. It is just so ubiquitous,” he says.

As he grew older, Ravindranath also decided to centre his decisions around people in his life, while making the most of technology. That is why, after spending close to 13 years in the UK, he decided to move back home to India in 2018.

All Roads Lead Home

“I spend a lot of time on the road. So instead of living in London, and taking a flight out, I decided to live in India and take the other way,” he explains the rationale. This has allowed Ravindranath and his wife to start their family closer to their parents. With a three-year-old daughter now in the picture, he is grateful that his child gets an upbringing around both sets of grandparents.

“Both my parents had very busy working lives. My father was in the leather business and my mother worked for Airtel. They both worked long hours but they always found ways to manage their schedule to spend time as a family with my brother and me. Growing up, this taught me the importance of striking a balance between my professional and personal life,” he says.

“While we were growing up, education primarily meant academic development through subjects taught at school. For my daughter, we don’t want her to feel the pressure of following the traditional Indian route of pursuing an engineering degree or of becoming a doctor. Whatever she ends up doing, we want her to grow up to be kind and useful. ‘Useful’ could mean anything that moves this world forward whether it is corporate life or societal impact. This is because, I fundamentally believe that every human must make themselves useful in some way and contribute to the world at large,” he says.

The flexibility offered by technology, along with India’s reputation as a global IT powerhouse, lets Ravindranath enjoy the best of both worlds. He says about India’s growth, “Multinational companies no longer come to India for cost arbitrage. From a place delivering just offshore scale at low cost, we are now an epicentre of skills, innovation and start-ups.”

Being in Chennai also allows him to work on social impact endeavours close to his heart and give back to the community that nourished him in his early years. Does he miss the life abroad then?

Beyond the constant travelling required for work, his long stint in Europe had allowed him to spend many holidays travelling around the continent. Now, having been married for six years, his wife has become his constant travel companion. Together, they have gone on road trips across much of Europe and they make it a point to travel together at least once a year.

“My wife Shravya Reddy and I met in Chennai through mutual friends. Shravya has been my greatest pillar of strength throughout the growth in my career,” he says.

According to him, Shravya has supported him all through and had adjusted around his crazy life of travel and living between continents whilst providing stability at home for their family. Having a partner that supports you makes a huge difference especially in a high-pressure corporate environment. “I am very lucky to have her,” he says.

“Though I have an incredibly busy life, we make a deliberate effort to take out at least two to three weeks a year to travel and visit different countries,” says Ravindranath, as he finalises the itinerary for an upcoming holiday with his family, this time in South America.