AT THE HEART OF CHANGE

For Hriday Ravindranath, chief digital and information officer at Orange Business, digital transformation is not merely about technology. Instead, it extends to understanding that technology is changing the social fabric, connectivity, the way people interact, health, education and more

- Abdul Haleem Sherif

It is often said that technology is at the heart of any business transformation. For enterprises to remain relevant and push forward, they have to keep pace with advancements in technology. That is where people like Hriday Ravindranath come in; bringing with them the ability to gauge change before others.

Today, he is the chief digital and information officer at Orange Business, a multinational business-to-business (B2B) technology firm headquartered in Paris. But his tryst with technology began long ago in his childhood home in Chennai, where sci-fi blockbusters such as Star Wars, Back to the Future and Terminator captivated his young mind.

At the age of 12, when he was gifted a second-hand computer, he made his first real foray into the world of digital possibilities. Initially, the computer was his portal to the virtual realms of Prince of Persia and Doom, and he toyed with the idea of becoming a game designer.

But it did not take him long to switch from gaming to programming, teaching himself languages like BASIC and C++. When it was time for Ravindranath to make his first major choice in life, the path to technology seemed well and truly cut out for him.

Passion + Pragmatism

The decision to get an engineering degree in computer science seemed like a natural course of action. Not only was it something Ravindranath was passionate about, but it also offered a very practical career option. “At that time, as with most Indians from middle-class families, it is kind of embedded into your head that you need to be an engineer and you need to do computer science,” recalls Ravindranath.