Snowflake

Forbes India presents "The Data Circle" in association with Snowflake, is an initiative that showcases top tech leaders in a thought leadership format. The selection process takes a comprehensive approach, considering their influence on both their companies and industries. The pivotal roles of these tech leaders drive innovation and breakthroughs within their respective sectors. These agile and enterprising leaders adeptly strategize to manage critical organisational conditions. The campaign aims to acknowledge and engage these exceptional professionals who are shaping the future.

Harnath Babu, Chief Information Officer, KPMG

At the Forefront of Innovation

From a young age, Harnath Babu was fascinated with technology and marvelled at its transformative power. His passion for problemsolving and desire to innovate and push boundaries motivated him to pursue a career in technology. His role as CIO and partner at KPMG in India brings together his lifelong love for technology and his unwavering belief in its potential to transform the world.

A recipient of many prestigious awards, his objective as CIO is “to reinvent the modern-day work, workforce, and workplace with cutting-edge technology and innovation”. He serves as the captain of the technology ship, charting a course towards success and driving faster business results. Babu believes that aligning technology strategy with business objectives is the cornerstone of triumph. They have fostered a culture of collaboration in their company, engaging with key stakeholders across business functions to understand their needs, challenges and long-term goals.

> With this understanding, they craft technology strategies that serve as a catalyst for success. He believes that, as CIO, it is crucial for him to prioritise security and cyber resilience in the fi rm. They have a robust security system in place to protect their technology infrastructure and have deployed cuttingedge Network Operating Centres across locations to ensure high-level security, uptime, and continued performance 24x7x365 for the firm’s IT infrastructure.

As CIO, Babu leads in providing comprehensive training and development programmes to equip employees with the technical prowess and soft skills needed to stay at the forefront of emerging technologies. In his words, “Technology is the engine that drives digital transformation, analytics is the fuel that powers it, and process automation is the guiding system.” Through their technology solutions at KPMG in India, they have strived to augment human potential and simplify operations. They identify game-changing innovations and incorporate them. They make informed decisions, leveraging the potential of generative artifi cial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, and beyond, while keeping the organisation at the forefront of innovation.