CIO profile: Cyient’s Pallavi Katiyar on why it’s important to bet on people

Pallavi Katiyar began her career as an IT consultant, and today is leading a much broader portfolio as the CIO of Cyient. Throughout her professional journey, she has had opportunities to play different roles: “There has never been a dull moment,” she says.

Over the past 22 years, Katiyar has worked in different domains, technologies, and industries, and that has opened up a lot of avenues for her, from coding and product design to running large RFPs and SAP implementations. She’s also been involved in supply chain consulting, vendor management, and, most recently, driving large infrastructure and cybersecurity transformation projects.

In this interview with CIO India, Katiyar talks about her management philosophy, and how she has directed her career.

CIO India: What has been your greatest career achievement?

Pallavi Katiyar: I have been very experimental and have not hesitated to take on new challenges. This risk-taking capability and passion for solving problems opened up an opportunity — an M&A initiative by a $21 billion company in one of my previous organizations. I led the IT integration for two global business units that came together via this M&A route.

The two had very different enterprise and infrastructure portfolios with only a few synergies. This made it complex because both businesses claimed to be more advanced. Even before you can start looking into the technical integration, you’re trying to get the teams aligned on the future landscape — what is retained and what is replaced. The integration was happening across countries, so the execution has to be effective as it impacts hundreds of locations across the globe. The whole chain of management aspect and communication became critical.