Co-founder & Managing Director - WithinTheBox.ai I Entrepreneur I Board Member I Digital Anthropologist & AI Ethicist I ex-CEO, Infosys Finacle I Fellow - Royal Anthropological Institute
A podcast. A pandemic. An advertisement (= career 2.0) Life has a strange way of helping you look back to connect the dots. These are the three dots from the last few years that have brought me to where I am and equally, to where I am headed. While this is probably not the place and time to dwell on all 3 dots, let me just say something about the last and most recent dot - the advertisement. Watching a documentary on impactful advertisements early in 2023, one advertisement for a leading brand stayed with me. It was the voice over which asked, “when was the last time you did something for the first time”. Recently, I stepped down from my role as the CEO of Infosys Finacle - and after 33 years as a Corporate employee with different organisations, I am going to do something for the first time at the young age of 60….become an entrepreneur! In early 2020, I stepped into the world of academia, whilst still holding a fulltime job that came with global responsibilities – admittedly, the impact of covid and the fact that business travel and holidays were not possible, certainly helped in allocating time to studies. A master’s first in an emerging social science, Digital Anthropology at UCL led to another master’s in AI Ethics and Society at the University of Cambridge. At that stage, I did not intend for 4.5 years in academia in my late 50s to lead to entrepreneurship….but here I am! It will be an altogether different world with an altogether different set of challenges and opportunities. I know from time to time I will stumble and fall, but I am confident I will get up, brush off the dust, learn and move on. Most importantly, I know I will learn to enjoy the new way of life. To have been employed by some leading brands in financial services and tech has been my good fortune – Australia’s Anz (Australia And New Zealand Bank) Bank group, IBM Consulting and most of all, Infosys. As many others have opined in the past, once an Infoscion, always an Infoscion. In my case, it is twice an Infoscion, as I bring my second stint with the company to an end - 21 of the 33 years!! The opportunity to be an employee of this incredible company and to lead Finacle to industry-leading performance these past few years was indeed a privilege - and one that I hopefully did not ever take for granted. To my many colleagues, customers across the world, our business partners, associates in the world of analysts and media, and even to my critics, I say thank you. Memories will stay for long, friendships longer still. “It's a new world, it’s a new start It’s alive with the beating of a young heart It’s a new day, in a new land And it’s waiting for me Here I am” ‘Here I am’ by Bryan Adams #InfosysFinacle #entrepreneurship #AI
All the best Sanat
Congratulations Sanat Rao
Congrats Sanat
A true inspiration Sanat! I still remember when in the middle of Covid I asked you for 'a bit of guidance' while i was finishing my MBA, and immediately you gave me your WhatsApp number and called me. Those gestures are not easy to forget. Enjoy your next adventure!
Congratulations!! So nice to see your update and adventures.
Congratulations Sanat! A corporate life well lived! From our days as graduate trainees at ANZ in Mumbai through our moves to Kolkata and then Melbourne and Chennai before we each headed in our different directions and eventually countries on opposite sides of the world. I cherish our time together both at work and outside work. Chummery mates, flatmates and more. Enjoy the new direction. I wish you well and I’m confident that you’ll succeed!
All the best for your next venture Sanat Rao
Congrats Sanat and wish you the best!
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3moWow! Congrats Sanat! Onward and upward. Now, we have to meet to celebrate this new phase. London or Bangalore?!