Baba Prasad CEO, Vivékin Group | Wharton PhD | Professor | Author | Innovation, Leadership & Strategy Consultant Hyderabad, India, & Durham, NC, USA

Baba Prasad, President and CEO of Vivékin Group, is a leading thinker in the area of management strategy and innovation. Prasad is a Sloan Fellow at the Wharton Financial Institutions Center, University of Pennsylvania. His radically innovative approach to leadership and strategy in turbulent business environments is presented in his book, Nimble: How Intelligences Can Create Agile Companies and Wise Leaders (Penguin-Random House India, May 2015). The book has been acclaimed by business leaders and thinkers across the world, and will be published in a worldwide edition as a TarcherPerigee imprint by Penguin-Random House in the USA. Prasad has also been a technology strategy consultant on Wall Street.

EDUCATION

Prasad studied electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and artificial intelligence & robotics at the University of Hyderabad, India. He did his post-graduate work in computer science in the USA at Dartmouth College (computer vision) and Kansas State University (distributed computing). He has a Ph.D. in operations and information management from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (technology strategy in retail banks).

B-SCHOOL TEACHING

After his Ph.D., Prasad taught in the business schools at Purdue University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. Students in his MBA courses noted him as insightful and inspiring, and he was rated MBA faculty of distinction in his very first semester of teaching at Purdue. Prasad is a visiting professor of management at many schools in India including the International Institute of Information-Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H), Woxsen (Hyderabad), MYRA (Mysuru), and Vedica (New Delhi). He teaches in the areas of business strategy, innovation, and leadership.

INNOVATION & STRATEGY CONSULTING

Prasad’s consulting practice builds on the framework outlined in his recent book Nimble. In business worlds, where the magnitude and rate of turbulence increases unabated, Prasad and his team help clients move beyond making reactive short-term responses. Through many years of research at some of the world's best business schools, Prasad developed the Vivékin Intelligences Framework (VIF) as a tool for strategic planning in environments of turbulent change. Since then, VIF has been honed through consultancy in a range of companies—from Fortune 100s to startups. VIF enables business leaders and organizations to take quick decisions and actions in times of rapid change, but also be wise while doing this. Using the Vivekin Agilities Profile (VAP)—which provides a comprehensive measure of agility across five dimensions—Prasad helps CXOs discover and correct lopsidedness in their team’s and their company's agility. This helps to overcome the unrecognized imbalances in agility that destroyed giants like DEC, Nokia, Kodak and Enron.

PERSONAL DETAILS

Prasad lives across two continents, has two teenage daughters and two dogs, and is a fitness enthusiast. Prasad spends most of the year in Hyderabad to be with his 91-year old father. Prasad and his wife, Professor Leela Prasad of Duke University, work during the summers in economically underprivileged elementary schools in Hyderabad. They helped to set up Aksharavani, a school for children of migrant construction workers in the city. They are currently making a documentary film titled Moved by Gandhi.

Praise for Baba Prasad’s book, NIMBLE

”… must-read” — Narayana Murthy, Founder, Infosys

“…promises to change the thinking on strategy and leadership.” — Adi Godrej, Chairman, Godrej

”..will define business strategy in the decades to come" —John Replogle, CEO, Seventh Generation Products

”...a pragmatic framework ... to compete and win in today's environment" —Brad Smith, President & CEO, Intuit

“...helps build companies that are dynamic, resilient, and visionary even in rapidly changing circumstances" —Vijay Govindarajan (VG), Dartmouth & Harvard