Kumar Chetan: Account CTO & Enterprise Architect

01About

The trusted advisor in the CxO room.

A proven technology strategist with a long record of delivering in new technology areas: data centre transformation, cloud native services, DevOps, data analytics, digital workplace and information security, with high customer satisfaction. Kumar shapes transformation strategies, technology roadmaps and productised service portfolios, and builds the business cases behind complex solution architectures.

02Experience

The route, hop by hop.

A network engineer’s career, traced the way he would trace a packet: every role a hop, from Hyderabad to London.

~/kumar · traceroute

Nov 2019–PresentLondon

Tech Mahindra Now

Account CTO / Senior Enterprise Architect

UK’s #1telco, architecture across lines of business

SSituation: The UK’s largest telco provider, modernising across many lines of business at once.
TTask: Provide enterprise architecture support cutting across the business units, as Account CTO.
AAction: Data centre transformation, application modernisation, microservices architecture, All-IP migrations, virtualisation of service platforms, and designing and building cloud native platforms. See the blueprint.
RResult: Cloud native platforms and a data analytics platform built globally for the UK’s largest telco.

Nov 2015–Nov 2019Copenhagen

Tech Mahindra

Assistant Vice President / Enterprise Architect

Nordicsregion headed for global delivery and DC transformation

SSituation: Major enterprise accounts across the Nordics, including a large service provider in Denmark.
TTask: Head the region for global delivery and data centre transformation.
AAction: Solution consulting, DC strategy, technology roadmaps and business development, leading solution architects, product managers and delivery.
RResult: New services in Cloud, IoT, Analytics, Mobility and SAP HANA for a large Danish service provider.

Dec 2013–Oct 2015Melbourne

Tech Mahindra

Transformation & Delivery Head

0outages, delivered ahead of time

SSituation: A major bank and a telco in Australia needing workspace and data centre transformation.
TTask: Lead the Workspace Transformation Programme and migrate workloads as part of a DC transformation.
AAction: Built a service provider Desktop as a Service offering and migrated the workloads. Try the migration.
RResult: Workloads migrated without any outage, and appreciation from CxO level for delivering before time.

Oct 2008–Dec 2013New Delhi

Wipro Technologies

Head & Principal Architect, Integrated Cloud Services

Cloudrevenue from a new technology area

SSituation: Enterprise CIOs working out their cloud strategy, when cloud was still new.
TTask: Build Wipro’s integrated cloud services and help CIOs choose the right strategy.
AAction: Reference architectures, business cases, design and architecture, and opex-based pricing models for enterprise customers.
RResult: Revenue from a new technology area, high customer satisfaction and enhanced competitive advantage.

03The blueprint

Modernising a telco, layer by layer.

The six layers his architecture work at the UK’s largest telco cuts across. Drag from legacy to target and watch each one change; click a layer for what it involved.

Legacy Target

An illustration of the areas in his record, not the client’s actual architecture.

04Zero-outage migration

Move the data centre. Keep the lights on.

In Australia he migrated a bank’s and a telco’s workloads without a single outage, ahead of time. The secret is the plan: map the dependencies, then move in waves. Try it both ways.

A simulation of the method. The workloads and dependencies are illustrative; the zero-outage outcome is from his record.

05Portfolio & M&A

Bids won, portfolios grown, companies joined.

IT portfolio matured · a large Indian SI

$150m

$350m

Matured an IT portfolio ranging from $150 million to $350 million, and won multiple hybrid cloud and large data centre bids globally.

India1997–2013Engineering to cloud architecture

Australia2013–2015Workspace and DC transformation

Nordics2015–2019Headed the region

United Kingdom2019–nowAccount CTO, UK’s largest telco

Hybrid cloud
Large DC
Desktop as a Service
Cloud native
Data analytics
SAP HANA

Fidelity Information Services · 2006–2008

Four acquisitions, one strategy.

Responsible for the acquisition of four large enterprises for FIS, bringing applications, infrastructure, security and the business together on one technology strategy for growth.

The foundations

2004–2007Wipro TechnologiesSenior Manager, Technology Infrastructure Services: complex IT integration projects connecting IT with the business
2003–2004Mahindra SatyamNetwork Specialist: network design, routing, VPN GRE tunnels with IPsec, Checkpoint firewalls
2000–2002Pentasoft TechnologiesNetwork Administrator
1997–1999Subros LimitedSystem Engineer, where it started
EducationOsmania UniversityBachelor of Engineering