Lakshmi Narayanan is the vice chairman and ex-CEO  of Cognizant. He was the CEO and president of Cognizant until 2006. ^[1]

Lakshmi has played a leading role in the global information technology

Information technology

Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...

 industry for more than 25 years, managing divisions and business units in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Since joining Cognizant Technologies

Cognizant Technology Solutions

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. is an American global provider of custom information technology, consulting and business process outsourcing services. Its headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey, United States and is a member of NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500 and Fortune 500...

 in 1994, he has been instrumental in formulating the company’s strategy and building and managing the organization’s development centers in India, where he is based. A member of Cognizant’s Board of Directors, Lakshmi spends time traveling extensively in the U.S. and Europe to meet clients.

He recently served as Chairman on NASSCOM

NASSCOM

The National Association of Software and Services Companies of IT software and services related activities for use of both the software developers as well as interested companies overseas....

 (National Association of Software and Service Companies). http://www.nasscom.in/Nasscom/templates/NormalPage.aspx?id=28660

Lakshmi began his career at Tata Consultancy Services

Tata Consultancy Services

Tata Consultancy Services Limited is a global IT services, business solutions and outsourcing company headquartered in Mumbai, India. It is the largest provider of information technology in Asia and second largest provider of business process outsourcing services in India...

, growing through the ranks from developer

Software developer

A software developer is a person concerned with facets of the software development process. Their work includes researching, designing, developing, and testing software. A software developer may take part in design, computer programming, or software project management...

, to technologist, to program manager, to business leader. He was a regional head of Tata in India when he joined Cognizant as CTO. He holds a BS and MS in science and electronics from Bangalore University (University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering

University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering

The University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering, popularly known as UVCE, is an engineering college affiliated to Bangalore University, located in Bangalore, India. The college was established in 1917, by Bharat Ratna Sir M. Visvesvaraya. The college is approved by the AICTE and the Government...

) and an PG Diplama from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Lakshmi Narayanan was awarded the Dataquest IT Person of the Year 2008 by the CyberMedia group's IT publication, Dataquest.