Sign in to follow 's advice will appear in your account when you log in. Follow specific Community Members and never miss out on their views and insights. Build a group of Members who you want to listen to.

Email: Password:

Don't have SiliconIndia account? Sign up Forgot your password? Reset

Ask Dhiraj Sharan for Advice

If your advice request is relevant to other Community members, our Editorial team may choose to send this request to all Experts to attract a wider range of answers and share them with the Community. Rest Assured, we will protect your privacy (unless you recommend otherwise).

Advice Request

Submit Cancel

Dhiraj Sharan

Next Member >>

Dhiraj Sharan

Technology Leadership

HP Enterprise Security

Brief description about me

In my current engineering leadership role in HP Enterprise Security, I
wear multiple hats of an architect, engineering manager, and technical product
manager. My technical expertise is in areas such as enterprise security, machine
data analytics, big-data, distributed and cloud computing, Java server and
middleware, SOA, Web 2.0, and SQL and NOSQL databases.I received my B. Tech in Computer Science from IIT (BHU), Varanasi
(India) and Management from Harvard University. My first job was as a software
engineer in Novell.I am passionate about creating software products that solve complex
problems in simple and elegant ways.

Challenges in job

The most changing part of my technology management job is that I am in an industry (data and information security) that is under constant change and we have to quickly keep pace with it.
Instead of resisting change and protecting your existing technology, it is better to embrace change, take the courage to break what you have built with great effort over years, and do that before others come and break it for you! We can never grow too comfortable with what we have and have to always be ready to adapt.

Job made easy

To be an effective leader, you have to create a work environment that breaks silos and fosters collaboration. And to do that, I found that you first have to be ready to give, instead of only thinking in terms of what to take. I am an optimist and I found that the job becomes easier if you truly care and put more trust in your team. That makes it so much easier for the team to align, see the vision, and make the impossible possible.

Upcoming trends

Data is fast moving to Cloud and it is also growing at a huge volume making it even more difficult to collect, store, and quickly analyze. Cloud and Big Data are two industry trends that will be game changing for the Enterprise Security industry.

My point of view

Our education system, and to some extent our culture, is catered more towards taking a well-defined ladder and it looks down upon failure, even more so if you didn’t follow the “expected” path. That is why I think we have seen successes on the service sector but less success in innovation and in solving our own country’s complex problems.The education system and the society has to be changed to foster self-learning, independent exploration, respecting everyone’s personal paths, and valuing failure as a learning tool. That’s the way to breed leaders and risk takers who can create new products. I think the next generation understands this better now, so we have brighter future ahead. India’s day-to-day problems are a fertile ground for new innovation and I am sure we will soon see successful products that would dominate global markets. Entrepreneurs in India have the best opportunity to do more with less.

My goals

I am lucky to be in the growing field of data and information security. At a very basic level, I love finding challenging needs and then building products from scratch that can meet those needs. The barriers to solving software based problems is getting lower with technology advances so I can aim and try to create something of value. That’s what I want to do for my personal satisfaction. HP gives me a great environment and a great team to do that.

family background

I have spent my childhood in Patna (Bihar, India) where I was born and had my early education. Historically, that region (ancient Patliputra in the kingdom of Magadha) is the land of great empires like the Guptas and the Mauryas and is the birthplace of Buddhism and Jainism. Most of my family still resides there and so this gives me the opportunity to visit Patna, see it grow, and see its ups and downs, more recently more ups than downs!

Advice to professionals

Data and information security is a vital part of today’s world. This is a field that has growth and ubiquity because of increasing cyber-crime, cyber-terrorism, and financial fraud that can impact individuals, organizations, or entire countries. The need is even greater because of trends like data moving to cloud, social networking, and increasing mobile connectivity.
It is a great opportunity to be part of this field at this time. There are still very complex problems that are unsolved and I would encourage the next generation to join this fast-growing field and bring new perspective.

Advice to students

In my undergraduate years in India, the college culture was more around getting good grades and finding a high-paying IT industry position in a brand-name company. I was probably more tuned along those lines too. But now I wish the creativity bug had bitten me earlier in those college days so that I could have explored more, learnt more by trial, and taken more risks early in my career instead of following the popular path to success.