Short Bio:
editSriram Kannan is a senior finance and business consulting professional with 14+ years of extensive and progressive experience in audit, assurance, controllership, GRC, corporate strategy, DW/BI, EPM/CPM and finance transformation. He has built, managed and influenced large, highly skilled and geographically diverse teams; challenged and motivated teams to create an environment of thought leadership and continuous improvement thereby increasing team efficiency and capability. At Wipro, Sriram's role and responsibilities include:
- GTM, proactive and consultative sales and value creation for "large deals" in the Banking & Financial Services portfolio.
- Collaborating and partnering with salesforce and GTM teams in defining and crystallizing strategy, building target operating models, ROI driven road maps and business cases, crafting and shaping opportunities through "CXO level" engagements.
- Being a "trusted adviser" to C-level and LoB executives, and senior IT leaders by bringing together deep industry experience, broad knowledge of trends in today’s globally inter-connected markets; and a track record in applying business analytics to achieve breakthrough results.
- Delivering positive client, practice and business impact.
Most recently, at HCL Technologies, Sriram instituted and lead the Business Analytics & Finance Transformation practice with full P&L responsibility, where his key role was to strategically design and implement BI & Analytics solutions to F-100 customers for enhanced business measurement and performance, both operational & financial. Focus areas included:
- Creating functional and risk management architecture that optimized business, finance and risk management processes.
- Developing solutions that met business needs while creating long-term value for customers.
- Implementing a performance management framework fit for purpose in the current environment, and is robust through being flexible, scalable and adaptable.
- Strategy, Governance, Business Analytics, Info Analysis, Balanced Scorecard, KPIs, Metrics, Dashboards, Reporting and EPM/CPM.
Sriram ensured FT and risk management programs were optimized to deliver agreed benefits to the business and finance function to established scope, cost, service and risk targets. He was also involved in evaluating potential new-tech acquisitions (products/solutions) in the BI/Analytics space.
Prior to HCLT, Sriram lead the corporate finance, controllership and compliance functions for a diversified trading & retailing group based in Hong Kong, where he was also responsible for evaluating new-technology investments as part of the group’s diversification strategy while overseeing and managing relationships with various stakeholders.
Earlier, Sriram’s professional experience includes stints with Polaris Software Labs Ltd, where as a Business Analyst he lead a techno-functional team that was instrumental in gathering and developing the functional specifications for “Intellect-Online” (online Corporate Internet Banking product), and at PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Global Risk Management Solutions group, collaborating with and managing a team of audit, assurance and risk consulting professionals in delivering several audit, assurance and consulting engagements.
Specialties:
edit- BI, Analytics, KPI/Metrics, Scorecards & Dashboards
- FP&A, Reporting, Financial Modeling, Planning, Budgeting & Forecasting
- M&A – due-diligence & integration
- GRC (incl. legal/contract negotiations)
- Implementing financial policies/procedures
- Building & managing competency-led high performance consulting teams
- Providing domain leadership to transformational engagements
- Hiring, training, coaching, motivating and developing finance & business consulting talent
Media & Speaking Engagements:
editInterviewed by
edit- ACCA for ACCACareers.com on the role and opportunities for finance professionals in the IT/ITeS sector globally.
- Solidiance for a white paper published on Business Analytics market in India.
- CFO Asia magazine for a research report published on Corporate Governance, Business Ethics and the CFO.
Speaker at
edit- Good Practices Conference (GPC) convened by HCL Technologies.
- B-Schools pan-India and CIMA Hong Kong.
- CFO-APAC Conference on Integrating IT, Finance & Supply Chain.
- CFO-Asia Rising Conference on Governance, Ethics & Asia’s Finance Leaders.
- Economist Intelligence Unit Opinion Leaders’ Panel Member
Hobbies & Interests:
editSriram is an ardent lover and listener of carnatic music. He regularly scribes articles for various professional journals and has presented papers on Corporate Governance, Finance-IT, Innovations in Banking & Financial Services Technologies and Financial Strategy in addition to being a voracious reader. He is actively involved in mentoring young entrepreneurs, finance and business consulting professionals.
Family:
editSriram resides in Bangalore with his wife, Sharanya, a trained carnatic musician and son, Shravan.