Siva Pothi
Chief Information Officer
Teleperformance
Siva Pothi is the Chief Information Officer for Teleperformance across the USA, Canada, and the Philippines. His team drives IT simplification, agility, and transformation to empower 85,000+ employees in these regions to do their best work and be productive every day.
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Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
My career path was anything but a straight line. After graduating in mechanical engineering, I co-founded a kitchenware manufacturing company. Profit margins were slim after long days and nights of hard work; I remember once sleeping on jute bags out of exhaustion in the corner of the factory.
Later, I shifted to software engineering, learning C++, Visual Basic, Java, Unix, and SAP. My first IT job was as an SAP ABAP trainer, and I excelled in it. After moving to the USA and working as a consultant in multiple technologies and domains, I became a manager at IBM. I was one of the youngest managers then. I worked hard and was willing to take on tough projects no one wanted. That became my calling card, and one challenging role led to another and 20 years later, I ended up in the CIO role, and my journey continues…
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
I am an inclusive leader, and my leadership philosophy starts and ends with people. “Take care of our people; they care for our clients; when our clients grow, our business grows.”
With disruption being a key theme of the past few years, where do you see your role as a CIO going in the next 1-2 years?
The CIO role initially was a technology operations leadership role. It evolved into a business leadership role to protect and grow revenue. I see CIOs partnering to build new digital business models leveraging technology to bring in new revenue streams. It’s exciting that CIO roles are becoming increasingly vital to the business. In the future, companies will add P&L owner’s responsibility for new digital revenue streams to the list of CIO leadership responsibilities.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out in the role as a CIO?
Like any other role, listen, learn, and act. To start with, build your leadership team. Identify your key business stakeholders and work to build trusting relationships. Build your vision and align your goals with your business needs. Align “ALL” your actions to support your business. Lead your team with empathy and take care of your people.
Tell us 3 fun facts about yourself.
- I am passionate about fitness; I ran 1336 kilometers (830 miles) in 2022 and loved it.
- As a kid, I used to breed ornamental fish and sell them!
- I used to drive a black Chevy Vega in the old days.
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