Srikantan Moorthy
Pro-Chancellor, my Lord-Lieutenant, distinguished friends, colleagues, graduands and guests.
Srikantan Moorthy, known as Tan to his friends and colleagues, is a Senior Vice president and Group Head of the Education and Research Unit at Infosys, an Indian multinational provider of business consulting, technology, engineering, and outsourcing services. With over twenty-five years of international experience in the professional services industry, he has dedicated his life to the future development of others.
Tan was born in the city of Trivandrum, the capital of the southern state of Kerala in India. He holds a degree in electronics engineering from Bangalore University, however he strongly believes that some of his most valuable training has come from his twelve years of work experience in the United States of America. He started his career in 1985 as a software engineer, working on a variety of computing platforms and on both systems and applications programming, and whilst in America he worked with several clients in the areas of strategy formulation, operations management and talent development.
Tan has been a key contributor to the competency development initiative at Infosys. Prior to his current role, Tan was the delivery head of Infosys’ Communication Service Providers unit. At Infosys, Tan has been an active member of several organisational initiatives and cross-functional teams. In his current role as the Head of Education and Research at Infosys, Tan’s primary responsibility is the development of new talent development. He drives the residential twenty-three week training for new engineers joining Infosys, and over fifteen thousand new engineers go through this programme every year.
The certification programme at Infosys is aimed at refreshing experienced professionals in the organisation and more than one hundred thousand assessments are conducted annually as part of this programme. Tan also drives the Infosys Campus Connect programme in which his unit partners with over four hundred engineering colleges in India and provides interventions to raise the employability of graduating engineering students. At the heart of Tan’s approach to training is a belief in the critical relationship between the key competencies of attitude, knowledge and skills.
Tan has participated as a speaker or panellist at various forums including the Global QuEST forum, the American Society for Training and Development’s ‘Learn from the BEST’ forum, the Confederation of Indian Industries’ National Summit on Quality in Education, and at various educational institutions across India. He has received Infosys Awards for Excellence in several categories, and he is an active representative of Infosys in several professional bodies including the National Association of Software and Services in India, the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies, the Professional Development Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery, and the Indo-US Collaboration for Engineering Education. Tan was elected to the Executive Committee of the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies at their Singapore meeting in 2010.
In July 2010, Tan was inducted as a founding member of the International Professional Practice Partnership Global Industry Council. This council has been established as the principal forum within which ICT employees can influence the development of the global profession.
In addition to his professional work, Tan has engaged in voluntary activities in several areas. He was on the board of Alliance for Community Care in California, until relocation to Virginia where he volunteered at the Habitat for Humanity. Currently, in India, Tan is engaged in youth and educational voluntary activities and is an advisory member of Youth for Seva, a not-for-profit organisation that focuses on harnessing the power of youth for voluntary activities. His commitment to voluntary activity is driven by his belief that through education it is possible to bring happiness to millions of people.
Infosys is ranked amongst the world’s most innovative and green companies. It has achieved a reputation as a trusted and admired company, and this is due in no small part to the innovative approach to training and development that has been led by Tan.
In recognition of his work to develop, through competency building, the global skills of IT and engineering professionals, Coventry University, by decision of the Academic Board, has the privilege of conferring the Degree of Doctor of Technology, honoris causa, on Srikantan Moorthy.