LAXMAN KUMAR BADIGA CIO, Wipro Technologies

How long at current company: More than 27 years

Most important career influencer: The first CEO of Wipro, Ashok Narasimhan, who began the IT initiatives in the company, was my most important influencer. His company vision and team management skills were the key to our overall success. His mentoring and positive reinforcement of the team has left a lasting impression on me and has guided my own learning and values.

Career accomplishments I'm most proud of: I headed the development and launch of the first packaged software from India in the 1980s at Wipro. Also, when I joined the company, it was horizontally focused, and I began to push Wipro into service verticals. I provided a global team of more than 90,000 with IT infrastructure, with consistent delivery management solutions for global delivery--and now we're able to scale up to an additional 20,000 employees every year.

Decision I wish I could do over: I wish I'd never taken a personal trip to Kuwait during the Iraq invasion in 1990!

The next big thing for my industry will be... virtual delivery by global teams. This is an extension of the global delivery model for outsourcing, and it will allow virtual teams to work together more effectively.

Advice for future CIOs: Keep in close touch with the business side and focus on delivering continuous business value. Capitalizing on opportunities for growth in an ever-changing world ultimately will lead to success.

IT budget (approximate): $75 million to $100 million

Size of IT team: 350 internal employees and 1,000 outsourced employees

Top three initiatives:

• Green IT. Our main priority is to deliver infrastructure services--including facilities with automation--to drive energy savings and improve the environment. This includes building management systems, LEED certifications for facilities, access management, consolidation of data centers, and virtualization.
• Collaboration. We're also focusing on providing infrastructure to enable virtual delivery and using presence information to improve the way virtual teams work together.
• Supply Chain. We're zero- ing in on improving our human capital management systems. As a services company, driving an efficient supply chain is essential for our profitability.

How I measure IT effectiveness: An important metric for us is when our people supply chain systems deliver an improved bottom line through better utilization. Also, when there's a reduction in people traveling for collaborating on projects, that's an important measure of effectiveness.

Colleges/degrees: Master of technology degree from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

Leisure activities: Reading and watching sports

Best book read recently: Good To Great by Jim Collins

Smartphone of choice: BlackBerry

Personal computer: MacBook Air

Last vacation: A remote island with no connectivity

If I weren't a CIO, I'd be... running a business--which I've done at Wipro