60: Knowledge is Power

In this conversation Ved Prakash, Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) at Trianz, shares his perspectives and experiences with Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting, about: His education in engineering and management His experience as a techie Being the first person in the company to lead an industry vertical How he was asked to make knowledge management more effective in wipro;  what, he thought would be a 2 year stint, became the turning point in his career The opportunities he saw in making larger impact and hence taking up new roles in other organizations Bridging an engineering mindset that may need clear specifications to the KM domain, where many things could be exploratory How his doing an MBA helped him become a knowledge oriented person The key role for a knowledge officer What is the role of knowledge management in the context of startups and beyond organizational boundaries Adopting some simple practices, such as scrum and using simple techniques to manage collective knowledge in startups  His thoughts on whether AI and ML will replace knowledge management professionals The traits needed to be a successful KM professional and the opportunities as a career in KM Ved Prakash is a well-recognized senior industry professional with a global experience of 28 years in a variety of leadership roles with strategic, business and operational responsibilities. He is currently Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) at Trianz, a Silicon Valley based Management Consulting firm helping Fortune 1000 organizations transition to a digital enterprise. He is also an independent KM Strategy Consultant to other organizations, guiding them on their knowledge transformation journeys. Prior to this, he spearheaded Knowledge Management at Montreal-headquartered CGI Inc. He led a large business transformation program across the organization there and was also a member of the Global Application Services Council at CGI. Ved was with Wipro Technologies for two decades where he was the CKO in his last role. Under his leadership, Wipro was the proud recipient of Global, Asian and Indian MAKE (Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise) Awards and was also granted a US patent on KM. Amongst other leadership roles at Wipro, he led the Healthcare and Life Sciences vertical with P&L responsibilities, and incubated and grew the Energy and Utilities business as the Practice Head. Ved has been an invited speaker in many national and international forums. He has been a driving force over the past many years in the conduct of CII Knowledge Summit, the annual flagship event on KM. He has consulted organizations across the world and across industries on their KM strategies. Ved is on the India Jury of Global MIKE (Most Innovative Knowledge Enterprise) Awards. He has been a member of several industry bodies including KM Global Network, KM Advisory Committee at National e-Governance Division of central Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, CII National Committee on KM and Business Transformation, and Bureau of Indian Standards National Committee for KM Standards. He holds an MBA from Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, and a B.Tech in Computer Engineering where he was a Gold Medalist.