2023 Top Consultants: Niraj Singhal

As a Senior Vice President at NTT DATA, Niraj has been a driving force behind the company's Consulting practice. This has been a common theme throughout his career of over 25 years: he has held several leadership positions and was responsible for the inception of Consulting at Dell Services. Niraj's focus on enterprisewide innovation earned him the prestigious Dell Innovation-of-the-Year-Award in 2014. His previous leadership positions include Executive Director for DELL's global consulting business, Director at Perot Systems, and Head of Business Development for TCS' Products division.

Niraj has won several awards and written over 35 papers around digital transformation, industry re-engineering and modernization, and market innovation in reputed journals. He is a regular speaker at various industry forums, including SWIFT Seminar (SIBOS), American Banker, European Banking Association (EBA), NASSCOM and the Gartner Conferences.

Driven by a passion for developing future leaders, Niraj has also established a culture of inclusive growth and feedback-oriented on-the-job training at NTT DATA. This includes nurturing a learning and mentoring ecosystem for future leaders with a strong focus on diversity. His team comprises members from 12 countries and eight nationalities, out of which 73% are early career consultants including 38% women.

What has motivated you to excel over the course of your career?

Making a positive impact on others is the biggest motivator in life and my career. ESG, especially considering recent economic and regulatory changes, has become an important part of CXO agendas. It is extremely satisfying for me to see that it is no longer just a question of reducing carbon footprint, but also of adapting to new societal expectations, addressing growing regulatory needs, generating new revenues and gaining overall resilience. Organizations have realized that taking meaningful actions early will have an overall positive impact in all aspects of ESG. At the same time, it will create a competitive advantage over their peers as this space matures.

I personally feel motivated when my clients overachieve their business results. Earlier this year, my team helped many leading companies across industries gauge their current standing across the ESG spectrum and implement improvements by using the Sustainability Assessment Framework, Analysis and Roadmap (SAFAR). The client testimonials that followed made me feel extremely accomplished.

What do you enjoy most about your career in the consulting industry?

As a Consultant, I love solving problems. Shaping my client's vision and setting them up on their growth trajectory with my innovative and relevant advisory is my biggest reward. During my Consulting career so far, I have helped many large organizations across several industries formulate and implement solutions for their cost, customer and compliance challenges.

Being an environmentally conscious individual, I have always emphasized focusing on making a difference in the environment. However, I always felt that something was amiss and what I was already doing was not enough. I started working on making improvements to our consulting framework before the pandemic struck. Even before I had finished, several of my customers were already interested in investing in these solutions to bolster their ESG agendas.

What does this recognition mean to you?

'Sustainability' is a category which I believe is overtalked but extremely underachieved! With the recent formulation of regulatory bodies, the industry has already taken the next big leap toward creating something actionable and meaningful.

More than a recognition for myself, I see this as a symbol of the growing intent of our industries and our clients to make this planet a better place. In addition, this award is also a testimony to the efforts of more than a thousand consultants within my organization who have tirelessly worked toward propagating the sustainability mindset across all their client conversations.