Head of Digital Transformation, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence
Turning transformation strategy into systems that actually run.
Twenty-two years leading enterprise and institutional technology change — from ERP and LMS modernization to AI adoption — across global telecom and, now, higher education. I work where ambition meets governance: translating board- and provost-level priorities into roadmaps that survive contact with legacy systems, budgets, and people.
How I sequence AI adoption
The four-phase maturity model I use to move an institution from pilots to AI-native operations, without outrunning its governance.
Assisted
AI supports individual tasks — drafting, summarizing, search — with a human reviewing every output. Low risk, fast to deploy, builds literacy.
Advisory
AI recommends decisions across a defined workflow — admissions triage, resource planning — but a person still approves the action.
Adaptive
Systems begin to act within guardrails, learning from outcomes and adjusting — student support routing, dynamic scheduling — under active oversight.
Autonomous
Agentic systems execute defined processes end to end, with governance built into the architecture rather than bolted on after.
Track record
Two transformation mandates, one discipline: align technology to institutional strategy, then deliver it in phases people can actually absorb.
Own the University's institution-wide OneDigital Program, spanning Academic ERP, Student Information Systems, and LMS modernization across academic, finance, HR, admissions, and research functions.
Chair executive governance forums with the Vice Chancellor/Provost's Office, CFO, Registrar, and Deans, converting institutional priorities into a phased roadmap with sign-off on integration, user experience, and automation.
Lead the University's AI strategy: a structured discovery across 15 departments mapping 40+ interconnected systems, agentic AI proofs-of-concept for the student lifecycle, and a four-phase AI maturity roadmap tied to institutional data governance and accreditation compliance.
Led successive enterprise-wide ServiceNow/ITSM transformation programs for a global telecommunications enterprise, including a full legacy Remedy-to-ServiceNow migration across 24+ business units, plus ITOM/GRC deployments and Splunk/CMDB integrations.
Built and led cross-functional transformation teams of 50+ professionals, directed vendor management and commercial solutioning for programs valued at $10M–$50M, and modernized legacy managed-service platforms to ITIL and compliance standards.
Combined impact: £14.3M+ in value delivered, a 32% improvement in service quality, a 27–30% gain in operational efficiency, and a 28% reduction in incidents across sequential mandates.