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Raj Kosaraju

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Raj Kosaraju

CIO

Maxil Technology Solutions Inc

Growth Strategy:

Developing yourself as a leader is not easy: behavioural change is hard, time consuming, and frustrating. However, removing the five most common roadblocks to change can make your path to self improvement better:
1) Take ownership. If you don't think you can change, you can't. Believe in your ability to change and take ownership before getting started.
2) Be patient. Positive, lasting results take time, usually 50% to 100% longer than most people initially think.
3) Accept difficulties. Real change takes real work. When setting out, be prepared to face challenges you didn't anticipate.
4) Refuse to be distracted. Something more important will inevitably come up. You need to make your development a priority and refuse to let distractions divert your path.
5) Maintain. Once you've started to see traction, don't declare victory. Sustainable change requires maintenance over a lifetime.

Career Profile:

I am enclosing a brief on my work experiences and background:
Raj Kosaraju, CIO of Maxil Technology Solutions Inc. based in Chicago, is a seasoned business professional with a diverse background. Raj Kosaraju brings more than 23 years of experience to Marketing, Management Information Systems and Technology Consulting. As CIO of Maxil Technology Solutions, Inc., Mr. Kosaraju has been instrumental in shaping up the growth of this rapidly growing information technology firm, which ranked 148 on the 2005 Deloitte Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology companies in North America. Mr. Kosaraju works closely with Maxil’s offshore development partners in overseeing project planning and the software solutions delivery management practice.
Mr. Kosaraju earned his MS in Information Systems & International Management from the Universidad Internacional De Las Americas in Costa Rica and his MBA from Texas A&M University.
Some of the key accolades under his leadership are:
• Maxil ranked 148 By Deloitte Technology Fast 500 in 2005.
• Maxil ranked by Inc. 500 (Inc. rank # 411) in 2006.
• Maxil ranked in top 100 by “Silicon India Magazine” in 2005.
• Ranked number 3 in the “Best Places to work in Illinois” 2006.
• Maxil ranked 91 in the “Global outsourcing 100” Fortune- April 2007 edition.
• Ranked 98 in the “Global Outsourcing 100” Fortune- April 2006.
• Won the Prestigious Alfred C Sloan Award for Work place Excellence
for Chicago region in 2006.

Contribution to the field

Mr. Kosaraju has been instrumental in shaping up the growth of this rapidly growing information technology firm, which ranked 148 on the 2005 Deloitte Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology companies in North America. Ranked number 3 in the “Best Places to work in Illinois” 2006. Also Maxil was ranked by Inc. 500 (Inc. rank # 411) in 2006.

Required Reading:

First, you'll make better decisions, and you'll spot threats and opportunities early on, which can give you a competitive edge. This is especially important if you contribute to shaping your organization's strategy. It's also important if you're involved in sales and marketing, where it helps you identify and take advantage of the sales opportunities that come your way.

Secondly, keeping up-to-date with your industry is key for building expert power . By developing expertise in your job and your industry, you'll earn the trust and respect of the people around you. From a leadership perspective, this is invaluable!

Finally, it will alert you to changes that you need to think about.

There are many of My Best Books. I will list some of them.

1. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't Collins, Jim

2. The Innovator's Dilemma (1997), by Clayton Christensen

3. Leading Change (1996), by John P. Kotter

4. The Six Sigma Way: How GE, Motorola and other Top Companies are Honing Their Performance (2000), by Peter S. Pande, Robert P. Neuman and Roland R. Cavanagh

5. Toyota Production System (1988), by Taiichi Ohno

6. Who Moved My Cheese? (1998), by Spencer Johnson

7. First, Break All the Rules (1999), by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman

8. The Goal (1984), by Eliyahu Goldratt

9. What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter (Jan 9, 2007)

10. Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back If You Lose It by Marshall Goldsmith (Feb 2, 2010)

Family Background

My late Father was a Scientist, two younger Brothers who also live in the US.

Degrees That Matter:

I did my MBA in International Business from Universidad Internacional Americas ( UIA) Costa Rica and MS in Information Systems from Texas. I would certainly recommend picking up a good overseas education to equip your qualifications and perspective towards work and professional goals.

Role Model:

My Role Model is Marshall Goldsmith:

Marshall Goldsmith was recognized in 2011 as the most influential leadership thinker in the world by Thinkers50/HBR! Along with being named as the #1 leadership thinker he has also been listed as the #7 greatest business thinker in the world. Goldsmith's work in helping leaders achieve positive lasting change in behavior has been featured in a The New Yorker profile, Harvard Business Review interview, Forbes feature story and Business Strategy Review cover story (from the London Business School). He is one of the few executive advisors who has been asked to work with more than 150 CEOs and their management teams. In 2011 Goldsmith was named winner of the 2011 Thinkers50 Leadership Award – as the World’s Most Influential Leadership Thinker, additionally ranking #7 on the overall list of Thinkers50 list.

Other Thoughts:

Love God. Love people. Live laughing. Growing. Learning. Leading. Inspiring. Encouraging.

Prized Accomplishment(s):

For me, my proudest accomplishments may be things like awards from work especially, winning the Prestigious 'Alfred C Sloan Award for Work place Excellence'for Chicago region in 2006.

Done Differently:

So, would I recommend IT? Yes I would but I would also suggest that those considering a career in IT, especially if they have an interest in eventually moving into management, get a broad education in business and seek out opportunities to serve on cross-functional teams to broaden their exposure to business in general and their industry in particular. IT had changed dramatically in the past two decades and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Leadership roles will continue to be less about operational management and more about using technology in innovative ways to exploit market opportunities. This, in my opinion, is a truly exciting opportunity and potentially a great career choice.

Professional Strengths:

Dedication/Hard-Working/Work Ethic/Tenacity, Willingness to Learn,
Dependability/Reliability/Responsibility, Positive Attitude/Motivation/Energy/Passion and Teamwork

Changes In The Professional Environment:

Data analysis has risen as an intellectual force of its own, with implications for how we accept new knowledge as facts.In all of these exponentially-growing technologies -- artificial intelligence, robotics, nanomaterials, biotech, bioinformatics, quantum computing, Internet of everything -- these files that are going to transform everything we have. Digital technologies such as mobile, social media, smartphones, big data, predictive analytics, and cloud, among others are fundamentally different than the preceding IT-based technologies. Newer technologies touch the customers directly and in that interaction create a source of digital difference that matters to value and revenue. We call that source a digital edge.

Technology has been evolving to enable this for the last decade. The ubiquity of network connectivity and the proliferation of smart devices (such as sensors, signs, phones, tablets, lights, and drones) have created platforms upon which every enterprise can innovate.

Becoming a digital business is no longer simply about how we incorporate technology into our organizations; it’s about how we use technology to reinvent those organizations to get out in front of the dramatic changes that technology is creating.

Plans For The Future:

Five years from now I would like to see myself as a better person both personally and professionally, in a respectable and reputed position earned through my hard work and skills and I also see myself as someone who contributed to the success of the company, remained grounded and most importantly valued discipline and self integrity among everyone else.

Working Life Management:

We discovered through hard experience that prospering in the senior ranks is a matter of carefully combining work and home so as not to lose themselves, their loved ones, or their foothold on success. Those who do this most effectively involve their families in work decisions and activities. They also vigilantly manage their own human capital, endeavoring to give both work and home their due—over a period of years, not weeks or days. I think I maintain a very good balance.

The Decisions That Matter

I started my career as a Junior Executive with a Joint Sector company (GNFC) which was into Fertilizers, Chemicals and Automobiles. In 1992 joined Kinetic Engineering and Honda motors as a Marketing Manager. During the course of my tenure I had an extensive Product Marketing exposure of Honda Automobiles. In 95 became a Divisional Manager (IT) in the Food Processing industry. As a major change in career shift I worked as a Project Lead in Infocorp in UK and South East Asia. As new markets opened up in Brazil, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina, I had decided to settle down in the growing Information Technology sector with a strong emphasis on Latin America and the US since 2000.

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