Mukesh Kumar
Slalom
Excellence in Leadership
In 1996, in the first few months of his career, Mukesh Kumar pulled two all-nighters back to back with another colleague to build a proof of concept to help sell into a client. That weekend, he told his father about how tired he was and that he was questioning whether it was even all worth it. He told me: "Son, honest, hard work never goes unrewarded" and "I have never forgotten that advice," Kumar says.
All that hard work—and perhaps a few more sleepless nights—have certainly paid off both for Kumar, and his clients. Today, Kumar is a General Manager at Slalom responsible for helping clients use technology and data to transform their business. In today's competitive market, companies increasingly need to combine data in new real-time ways to deliver against customer expectations through a variety of channels, Kumar says.
"I love to challenge the status quo. I love working hard. Both things fuel me. And because they fuel me, work doesn't even feel like work—it is more like play," he says. "I'm living my passion, so it makes it really easy to show up every day."
Kumar has expertise in understanding the key platforms that enable companies to be successful. His passion is focused on helping bring the power of machine learning and artificial intelligence to clients.
"I love to help others—whether that is our clients or others I work with at Slalom," he says. "Another thing that I love is being at the forefront of emerging technologies and working with our clients to figure how to land those technologies in practical and scalable ways to impact their businesses. I have a learner mindset and consulting is the perfect profession to feed that learning hunger."
Ask him what's been the biggest factor to his success and he'll say a relentless pursuit of positive impact. "I work hard, but hard work alone does not guarantee impact. I think having a vision and choosing what you focus on is lot more important," he says. "I constantly ask, how is what I am doing making life better for our clients and consultants? I practice mindfulness to keep me focused on what is important and not just what is in front of me."
As far as being named one of Consulting's Top 25 Consultants, Kumar says he has been "humbled" by the news. "I never expected this sort of recognition, but I am flattered that my colleagues took time to nominate me and Consulting magazine considered me worthy of this award," he says. "Considering who has received this award over the years, I know that I am in impressive company. The core of who I am involves hard work, integrity, a sense of urgency, service-leader mindset, mindfulness and a strong drive to help others reach for and realize their vision. This award is a validation that all of these things matter."
What professional achievements/accomplishments are you most proud of over the course of your entire career?
Kumar: "There have been different types of achievements in my career. As a Technical Architect in 2007, I designed streaming solutions for high transaction volume systems. It was a lot of fun to work on something very few had done. More recently, I launched Slalom's Regional Delivery Team where we're helping scale out emerging technologies to help our clients. Our growth has been phenomenal. I'm also proud of Slalom being recognized as Dell Boomi's North American Partner of the Year for 2018 through the great work of people on my team."
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