GAURAV KUMAR WANKAR
A Seasoned Thought Leader: The Ambassador of Transformation
Exploring the journey is more fascinating than the final destination. Along the way, we discover ourselves, follow our hearts, and understand what is most important in turning our dreams into reality. In his quest to transform society, Gaurav Kumar Wankar, VP of Product at SarvM.AI, has been rediscovering and empowering himself. In his words, “Being a lifelong learner committed to disrupting our intellection with a progressive and growth mindset is the key to reforming society.”
Along with Business Connect Magazine, Gaurav is also featured among the “10 Best Chief Product Officer’s (CPO’s) in India 2022” by TradeFlock Business Magazine in their November edition connecting the C-Suite Executives, Entrepreneurs, Founders & other decision-makers around the world.
In terms of his academic bastion, he is a Global Doctor of Business Administration scholar along with LL.M, M.Tech, double M.B.A, double PG, and 5 Executive Programmes from the University of Cambridge, UK; Swiss School of Business and Management, Switzerland; National University of Singapore; IIM Kozhikode; IIM Nagpur; IIM Indore; IIM Trichy; University of Hyderabad and JNTU Hyderabad, in addition to 400+ International Certifications.
As a Seasoned Thought Leader, he has led 25 teams across 21 geographical locations, achieving Global Enterprise Agility across Semiconductor, Electronics, IT, Telecom, Aerospace, Automotive, FinTech, AgriTech, HPC, Real Estate, and Media Production industries. As an Agile Transformational Coaching Leader, he has been a trusted advisor to the C-Suite with the brain of an engineer, the heart of a designer, and the speech of a diplomat, leading holistic business model innovation, transforming this VUCA world.
BUSINESS CONNECT SPOKE WITH GAURAV TO UNDERSTAND HIS JOURNEY, HIS VISION, AND STRATEGIES FOR THE FUTURE
BCM: THANK YOU FOR JOINING US GAURAV. WE WOULD LIKE TO UNDERSTAND HOW HAVE YOU BEEN ALTERING OUR PERCEPTION OF BUSINESS TOWARDS DIGITALIZATION WHILE WORKING ACROSS 14 ORGANIZATIONS?
GAURAV: As an Ambassador of Transformation, SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager, ICAgile Certified Agile Coach, Certified Scrum Product Owner, Agile Certified Practitioner, and Six-Sigma Black Belt Professional, I have been co-creating the program vision, crafting actionable roadmaps, delivering benefits cases spearheading Digital Transformation. As a Visionary Change Management Professional, I have been offering technology leadership, product ownership, and stakeholder engagement, identifying the pain areas, driving end-to-end PLC/PLM, exploring Next-Generation PaaS/SaaS/IaaS/AIaaS productized services driving Web-3.0 & Industry-5.0 Hyper-Personalization
As a People Leader, I have been a strategic Systems Thinker with Big-picture thinking, working closely with the CxO’s/ Stakeholders, igniting and catalyzing the organizational growth, balancing risk and innovation towards reforming society. As a Resilient Leader, I have been spearheading a unified e-commerce platform, an end-to-end SaaS business-place for supply chain management along with launching various Cognitive AI on-the-Edge Spatial Analytics solutions with immersive AI accelerated Digital-Twins enhancing the user experience in Metaverse environment replacing the 4 “P’s” of marketing with the 4 “E’s”, making our lives easier by allowing decision making based on Digital Reality.
BCM: QUITE THE WORK YOU’RE PUTTING IN. YOU ALSO POSSESS A FLAIR FOR CURTAILING FOOD WASTAGE. HOW IS SARVM.AI ASSISTING YOU IN FORTIFYING THIS AREA FOR YOU?
GAURAV: Food wastage is a critical issue in developing nations like India. A solid 34% of fruits and 44.6% of vegetables that are fit for ingestion do not reach the end users as it gets retarded either before or after it spoils due to the negligence at every level from harvesting, processing, packaging, shipping and consuming, leading to an overall loss of INR. 63,000 crores every year.
SarvM.AI is a Digital Transformation SaaS platform that uses Design Thinking, a human-centered and empathy first approach, uniting every member of the food value chain (i.e., producers, traders, retailers, and consumers). We intend to reduce food wastage by transforming the existing supply push to the demand-pull, bridging the gap with digitizing information, offering a wider reach to buyers/sellers in retaining and expanding clientele. This contrasts with the new era of competition, which is hurting the traditional vendors that account for more than 90% of the market.
BCM: VERY IMPRESSIVE. BESIDES BEING A VP, YOU ARE ALSO A KEYNOTE SPEAKER. HOW ARE YOU PAVING AN INNOVATIVE PATH FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS?
GAURAV: As a Keynote Speaker, I have been a visionary thought leader empowering organizational transformation in a chaotic scenario, inspiring and managing the change portfolio along with the anticipated resistance in ambiguous situations with benefit realization, value creation, and ROI generation. As an Evangelist, I have been leading by example, pushing boundaries, spearheading inter-disciplinary research, breaking the barriers in AI, Edge/Cloud Analytics, Electromagnetics, Silicon Photonics, Nano Technology, Blockchain and Metaverse technologies with crossfunctional collaborations converging various sciences together towards a better future. The world is evolving, becoming smarter, more flexible, and intuitive, and AIdriven Hyper-Personalization is the future.
BCM: WHAT ARE YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGES IN YOUR INDUSTRY?
GAURAV: Initiating the Digital Transformation journey, our biggest challenge was merging various entities under one umbrella, along with cultivating a culture of trust in a collaborative environment with diversity and inclusion. As a Transformational Leader, I have been scaling the organizational growth transitioning from Waterfall to Agile, including optimization of processes, reallocation of resources, and new product offerings, along with aligning the team dynamics with the portfolio canvas, lean budgets, industry standards, GDPR, and other legal policies, enhancing proficiency throughout the organization.
BCM: HOW DO YOU KEEP YOURSELF ABREAST WITH THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS WITHIN THE INDUSTRY?
GAURAV: As a Resilient Change Evangelist, I have always wondered if we are navigating a race in the maze while feeling safe and secure in our familiar surroundings. Being an ENFP personality, it has always been my passion to break barriers, push the boundaries, and move out of my comfort zone towards the learning zone, exploring the growth zone with the joy and excitement of chasing the unknown. As a lifelong learner, I believe in continuous exploration along with continuous improvement, staying self-motivated in trying something new, making mistakes, learning from them, overcoming my fears, and facing both professional and personal challenges.
BCM: FROM A DEPUTY SCHOOL LEADER TO A TECHNOLOGIST AND FINALLY VP OF PRODUCT AT SARVM. AI, YOU SURELY HAD AN INTRIGUING JOURNEY, WHAT KEPT YOU MOTIVATED AND PERSISTENT IN YOUR ENDEAVOR?
GAURAV: Working across 14 organizations as a VP of Product, Product Manager, Manager of AI, Digital Transformation Consultant, and Senior Product Consultant, I have been connecting the dots and realized that “The Reward is the Journey.” Leaving the corporate comfort zone adapting to what it means to work at a start-up while cutting back significantly, not only financially but also in our way of life, in our leisure time, and various other aspects.
The pain and joy, the setbacks and successes, along with the ups and downs, are the key points that we will remember from our experience. There is no other place than a start-up to quickly experience a variety of rainbow colors, altering our perceptions and evolving into being a better version of ourselves. Exploring this mesmerizing journey has evolved me into raising my game, transcending and reforming society.
BCM: THANK YOU GAURAV FOR YOUR TIME AND STORY. IT WAS INDEED A PLEASURE TALKING WITH YOU.
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