Achiever's Success Story
“Mr. R Vaidhyanathan, Sr. Director - Head, BCM GRC & Client Services, Cognizant Technology Solutions”
Someone has rightly said,” A man is a formation of his experiences. And those who use it for the benefit of others are the most respectable.” Meet a perfect example of this saying Mr. R. Vaidyanathan, a Global Risk & Resilience expert, Creative artist & Clay Modeler. He is a multitalented personality and he never expected that he will become an expert in the Risk and Resilience Domain, when he experienced and managed multiple crisis situations in his personal life. One such crisis of losing all his certificates while travelling to do his postgraduation in Engineering during 1989, forced him to give up his post graduation and start his work life. He started as a Field Service Engineer representing a Pondicherry based system integrator and pioneers in LAN, fixing up computers and the Network for their customers. Since then, he grew up to heading the customer support function of the company.
In 2000, at the right time he got into the Information security heading it for an IT Major, which gave him the base to spread wings into the risk and resilience.
Since then, RV’s passion is to develop the Risk & Resilience community across the country with an objective to make India resilient in all aspects. RV was part of the “Metro Governance Team” of the Rockefeller foundation initiative of 100 Resilient Cities & worked closely with the Chennai Resilience Officer (CRO) as part of the Resilient Strategy for Chennai.
He spends about 50-60 hours a month over and above his day Job at Cognizant, towards meeting the above objective. RV is former President of the BCI – India Chapter between 2016-19 and Past India Representative Member of the Global Membership Council of BCI and actively led in forming more BCI Forum in other metros across India.
RV is currently in the Bureau of Industry Standards (BIS), (the national body representing ISO Standards) Mirror Committee to ISO TC 292. He has been materialistic in Rapid Progression of BCI India Think Tank Next Practice, as a leader among the steering committee, which is already is a reference model for other countries globally that initiated the Think Tank much ahead.
RV’s work was recognized by various professional bodies globally. He is winner of Disaster Recovery Institute International – USA, “Lifetime Achievement” award in 2020, winner of Continuity Insurance & Risk – London, “Lifetime Achievement” award in 2019, Business Continuity Institute – UK, Industry Personality of the Year – India & South Asia in 2015, 2016 & 2019. And Global in 2019 & Hall of Fame 2019 awarded for winning 3 times in the Industry Personality of the Year Category.
RV is currently the Sr. Director & Head for Global BCM GRC and Client Services at Cognizant Technology Solutions. He has close to two decades of experience in BCM in his 32 years of professional experience, with an understanding of global business culture and the practical implementation of management systems. He has an international exposure in consulting in Industries like IT Services /BPO, Banking Financial Services & Insurance, Retail, manufacturing etc. He is the BSI’s first Technical Expert for BS25999 and ISO22301 in India.
Prior to joining Cognizant, he was the Global Head for Risk Products in BSI Group India, spearheaded in certifying various organizations for ISO22301 BCM Certification, & with Tata Consultancy Services as Global Head for BCM for 3 years before spending 3 years at Continuity & Resilience.