Anirudh M

Had a great time attending the Product Thinking and the Future of EPD(Engineering, product and Design) as an Engineering Leader event hosted by ELC today! A big thank you to ELC and Commure for organizing this thoughtful and engaging session—and to the amazing panel, including Dhruv Parthasarathy, Nissim Lehyani, James Tyack,Patrick Gallagher, for sharing their candid insights on how the traditional boundaries between Engineering, Product, and Design are rapidly evolving in the age of AI. Here are a few takeaways that really stuck with me: 🔹 Companies are shifting away from static PRDs and increasingly using prototypes as a discovery tool—validating ideas with customers early and often. 🔹 Hiring is changing: it’s less about checking boxes and more about finding problem solvers and clear thinkers who can adapt and lead. 🔹 When it comes to LLMs, everyone has their own “AHA moment.” Until then, keep exploring. You’ve essentially got the smartest person in your pocket—start using it to solve real problems. Excited to bring these insights back to my team and continue experimenting at the intersection of product, engineering, and AI! #EngineeringLeadership #AI #ProductThinking #ELC #LLM #TechLeadership #Prototyping #EPD

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📢 Get ready for insightful perspectives from Srinivasa Ogireddy, CTO at Cornerstone, in an exclusive HRTech interview! Srini shares his journey and vision for driving secure, compliant, and agile digital transformation, particularly within the public sector. He emphasizes that workforce agility is a key concern for government agencies, and platforms like Cornerstone's, built with security by design and meeting top standards like DISA IL4, are crucial for empowering employees while maintaining compliance. Key takeaways from the interview include: * Digital Transformation in Government: Agencies are accelerating digital transformation driven by citizen demands for a consumer-like digital experience, the need to combat sophisticated cybersecurity threats, and the post-COVID push for workforce modernization, highlighting the need for flexible, agile solutions. * Balancing Innovation & Security: Srini highlights that security must be a shared responsibility, prioritized from day one, and embedded throughout the system's development lifecycle. Platforms need to be built to meet the highest federal standards like FedRAMP, DISA IL4, and NIST to foster innovation responsibly. * People-Driven Transformation: He advises public sector leaders to invest in people – equipping teams with the right systems, training, change management, and leadership development – as people, not just technology, drive transformation. * Mission Readiness: Transformation in the public sector is about mission readiness, viewing technology as a strategic enabler for public service rather than just a back-office function. Don't miss the full interview to learn more about how Cornerstone is reimagining talent management and how he is driving the vision behind ‘Cornerstone Galaxy,’ a groundbreaking workforce agility platform! #HRTech #DigitalTransformation #WorkforceAgility #PublicSector #Cybersecurity #Innovation #Compliance #Cornerstone #SaaS #Leadership

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18 Years of Vision: A Reflection on an Era at Adobe After 18 years at the helm, Shantanu Narayen has decided to step down as CEO of Adobe. 18 years is more than a tenure. It’s an era. When he became CEO in 2007, Adobe looked very different. Software came in boxes. Products were sold once. Updates arrived every few years. Then came a bold decision that many doubted. Adobe moved from boxed software to the cloud. Photoshop. Illustrator. Premiere Pro. All transitioned to Creative Cloud, turning a traditional software company into a subscription-driven platform. At the time, it looked risky. Today, it’s taught in business schools. During those years, Adobe didn’t just evolve its products. It reshaped its identity. Revenue grew from roughly $3B in 2007 to over $23B+ annually. Adobe expanded from creative tools into digital marketing and customer experience platforms. Its market value climbed from about $20B to hundreds of billions at its peak. But perhaps the bigger transformation was cultural. Adobe stopped thinking like a product company. It started thinking like a platform for creators and businesses worldwide. And now, as Narayen steps aside, Adobe stands at another turning point. Artificial Intelligence. Generative tools. Creative automation. New ways of building, designing, and telling stories. The next chapter will be written in AI. But the foundation of that chapter was built over the last 18 years. Leadership transitions are often described as endings. But the best ones feel more like passing the baton in the middle of a race. Because companies like Adobe don’t move in decades. They move in eras. And this was one of them. ​Shantanu Narayen's 18-year journey at Adobe is a testament to his exceptional leadership, vision, and dedication. He has transformed Adobe into a global powerhouse, and his impact on the creative and technology industries will be felt for years to come. As we pay tribute to his remarkable tenure, we can look forward to seeing what the future holds for Adobe under his continued guidance. The question now isn’t just who becomes the next CEO. It’s: What will the next 18 years of creativity look like? #Leadership #Adobe #Innovation #TechnologyLeadership #FutureOfWork

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Don't fall into the trap of building solutions that only fit your needs and timelines. The catalyst to truly innovate and deliver high-grade solutions is to listen and understand your customers' problems. When you understand their real struggle, it forces you to drop your preconceived notions and ideate outside the box. That's where the magic happens. ✨

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As many companies(Amazon) prepare for potential layoffs, I want to share something personal. I’ve been laid off before. It’s not easy. But being prepared helped me recover much faster than I expected. Here are a few steps that made a real difference for me and can help you too: • Refine your resume before you urgently need it • Improve your cold outreach emails and LinkedIn messages • Brush up on core fundamentals relevant to your role • Document/Collect your achievements, impact, and deliverables while you still have access. Preparation reduces panic. Readiness creates options. Going through that phase taught me one thing clearly: the job market rewards people who act early, not those who wait for certainty. If you need help with resumes, cold emails, or a clear plan to move fast in this market, feel free to reach out. Happy to help. #Layoffs #CareerGrowth #JobSearch #ProfessionalDevelopment #ResumeTips #Networking #CareerSupport #TechCareers #Hiring #OpenToHelp

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🤝 Mentorship in Action After my last post on unlearning old skills to grow as a leader, a few people asked what I did keep through those transitions. For me, the answer is simple — mentorship. It’s been the constant across every stage — and honestly, as much about learning as teaching. It reminds me of sports: even the best athletes have coaches, not because they lack skill, but because great coaching builds perspective and resilience. Mentorship does the same for teams — it brings out their best. Early on, I thought mentorship was about giving answers. Over time, I learned it’s about creating space for others to find their own. Now, seeing someone I’ve coached step into leadership is the most rewarding part of the journey. As my org grew, mentorship evolved into a different kind of conversation — connecting with people several layers away. That’s where skip-levels started changing how I lead. More on that soon. ⸻ #Leadership #Mentorship #Growth #CareerJourney

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I am still energized from last week's #GCCXHyderabad event. Thank you 3AI and HYSEA for bringing leaders from the industry like the OG of GCCs - Lalit Ahuja along with several others to share their deep insights.   Here were the Key Takeaways from the event that resonated the most with me:   * Adopt a Cofounder Mindset: Leadership in today's GCCs means shifting from mere execution to true ownership and innovation. The target maturity needs to be set from top-down but embraced bottom-up. * Empower Your Teams: Create one unit - call them pods/squads that is capable of creating anything and everything and takes full ownership - let them own the full gamut of tasks and not just code — from requirements to building to QA to DevOps and so on. Help teams see the big picture—explain the "what" and "why," not just the "how." * Progress Over Perfection: Only 15% of AI experiments make it to production. Instead of chasing perfection, help your teams ship more often. * Data Before AI: Your AI is only as good as your data. Invest in robust data foundations to amplify your AI ambitions. * Monitor, Listen & Adapt: Put the right tools in place to track productivity gains from your AI adoption. Regularly engage with teams to uncover what's working, what's not, and help move the needle on real challenges. * Never Stop Upskilling: Bring in early talent, create a top-notch enablement plan, champion continuous up-skilling, and practice internal mobility - which means lower costs, greater loyalty, and deeper tribal knowledge. * Strengthen Academia Partnerships: Bridge the talent gap by collaborating with academia to help them keep pace with the rapid tech innovation. * Human-Centric Leadership: Empathy isn’t optional—make it the foundation of your culture. * Innovation as the Organizational DNA: Make innovation your default mindset. With co-located and cross-functional teams across tech, product, support, professional services, customer success, marketing, legal, rev-ops and sales, the impact is direct and transformational. The goal of a GCC shouldn't be to gain independence from the HQ; the focus needs to be to drive purposeful, aligned innovation with business context and global goals.

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"For these models to reach their peak value, you need to train them not just on publicly available data, but make privately owned data available for those models as well," - Ellison https://lnkd.in/gM6FskzJ

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The AI wave is undeniably in full swing, and it's exciting to witness the rapid advancements. Yet, in my conversations with business leaders across various private forums and summits, a recurring challenge emerges: 👉 How do we strategically diversify investments in AI adoption to ensure justifiable returns? At its core, a business exists to generate value for its investors. Therefore, any new technology, including AI, will see widespread adoption only if leaders can clearly envision its positive impact on the bottom line. This isn't just about building cool products; it's about making AI work for the business. In this context, I was recently approached for a 1:1 executive exchange with Apex Assembly, where I shared my thoughts on scaling organizations with AI adoption. My philosophy aligns strongly with Peter Senge’s insightful quote: “People don’t resist change. They resist being changed.” As leaders, our role extends beyond showcasing impressive demos and working prototypes. The most effective way to foster AI adoption is by demonstrating its tangible value – how it helps to solve the existing daily pain points and frictions in workflows. The more employees experience this direct benefit, the less resistance they'll have to embrace the change. This means we must genuinely listen to their challenges, rather than oversimplifying the problem or glorifying AI with vague metrics like "10x development speed" or "multiples of ROI." Every business unit faces unique hurdles. Therefore, it's crucial to localize the problem and apply AI tools precisely where they can deliver meaningful returns. For those interested in knowing more about my interview, please feel free to check out https://lnkd.in/gHR8rPXU. A special thanks to Nicolette St. Amand and the team from ApexAssembly for their continuous support, even with the delays on my end. Thanks, and I am interested in learning your approach to this problem in your organization. Please share your thoughts. Happy Friday!

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