Leaders of Impact

LeadersofImpact Podcast

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Leaders of Impact is a podcast hosted by Vikram Jain, featuring conversations with entrepreneurs, executives, innovators, and changemakers. Each episode explores leadership, growth, decision-making, and the experiences that shape impactful careers and organizations. Stories, insights, and lessons from leaders making a difference.

5d ago

Turning Data Into Operating Leverage - Vishal Bhola - S1, Ep. 13

Vishal Bhola is a data and analytics leader with more than 15 years of experience across marketplaces, e-commerce, fintech, analytics, AI, data product APIs, architecture, and decision-making systems. He has led global data teams, partnered closely with CEOs, CFOs, and product leaders, and helped organizations turn data into revenue growth, efficiency, governance, and better business decisions. In this episode of Leaders of Impact, Vishal joins host Vikram to talk about what it really means to turn data into operating leverage rather than just reporting. The conversation covers how to shift a data team from reactive to proactive, why KPI architecture becomes a compass for CXOs and clear ownership for teams, the skills that separate a good data leader from a great one in the AI era, and why Vishal is currently on an intentional career break to find clarity on his next step. Timestamps: 00: 13 – Welcome and today's theme: turning data into operating leverage 01:43 – Vishal's journey: from software engineering and ML research to data leadership 05:08 – Why he's taking an intentional break from HousingAnywhere 08:46 – The impact he's most proud of: shifting data teams from reactive to proactive 10:58 – What changes when data moves from reporting to shaping decisions 13:11 – A real example: the supply-demand pricing insight that shifted a stakeholder's mind 14:54 – Why KPI architecture matters for CXOs 19:50 – Clear ownership models and why they matter for accountability 21:56 – Skills beyond technical analysis: business acumen, AI fluency, and storytelling 25:48 – Why taking a break matters for clarity and career direction 26:36 – His own ways to reset: dancing, mindfulness, and family time 28:35 – The book that shaped his mindset on clarity and manifestation 32:36 – Two lessons for future leaders: learning to say no, and the power of pausing Vishal's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vishalbhola1/ Subscribe to Leaders of Impact for more conversations with technology leaders driving real-world change. #LeadersOfImpact #DataLeadership #Analytics #KPIArchitecture #CareerClarity
Sep 29

From Engineering Execution to Product Leadership at Scale - Arun Palghat Purushotham – S1, Ep. 12

Arun Palghat Purushotham has been a product and technology leader for more than 20 years, with experience spanning engineering, business intelligence, payments, education, and gaming. He is currently Director of Product Technology at Pragmatic Play, where he has spent more than eight years, including earlier roles as Head of Technology. In this episode of Leaders of Impact, Arun joins host Vikram to explore how technology leaders grow by adapting across industries, scaling teams, and moving from engineering execution to product and business leadership. The conversation traces Arun's path through gaming, education, and payments before landing at Pragmatic Play, digs into what entrepreneurship taught him about ownership, and unpacks the "sponge in the middle" leadership style that's carried him through high-pressure decisions. The discussion closes with Arun's take on where AI is headed next and why adaptability remains the one skill that never goes out of style. Timestamps: 00:13 Welcome and today's theme: adapting across industries to lead at scale 01:05 Arun's journey across gaming, payments and education 04:54 What every job taught him: no shortcut to success 07:13 Adapting to different industries 09:31 Why alignment with the company vision matters 10:50 What building his own venture taught him 14:55 Scaling teams over 8 years: learning to let go 19:34 Skills to build beyond technical delivery 24:53 Handling change across roles and industries 26:40 Staying calm under pressure 32:00 AI and the future of product technology 37:18 Closing thoughts on adaptability Arun's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arunpp/ Subscribe to Leaders of Impact for more conversations with technology leaders driving real-world change. #LeadersOfImpact #ProductLeadership #TechnologyTransformation #AIforBusiness #Adaptability
Sep 22

Why Adaptability Is the Most Important Skill for Tech Leaders - Praveen Gandepudi Varma- S1, Ep. 11

Praveen Gandepudi Varma is an enterprise digital and IT leader in life sciences with more than 21 years of experience across technology strategy, regulatory compliance, IT governance, computer systems validation, cloud transformation, GXP systems, quality, and risk. He currently serves as Director IT at Evestia Clinical. In this episode of Leaders of Impact, Praveen joins host Vikram to talk about why adaptability has carried him through two decades of regulatory change, cloud adoption, and now the rise of AI in life sciences. The conversation covers why compliance is an enabler rather than a blocker, how to think about responsible AI when patient safety and data integrity are on the line, the real risks around data residency and model drift, and the stakeholder-alignment lessons Praveen carries from turning around a struggling telecom transformation early in his career. Timestamps: 00:13 – Welcome and podcast’s theme: trusted digital transformation in regulated life sciences 01:16 – Praveen's journey: from process consulting to enterprise IT governance in pharma07:59 – The impact he's most proud of: patient safety, product quality, and data integrity11:07 – Turning around a telecom transformation through stakeholder alignment16:00 – Is compliance a blocker or an enabler of digital transformation?18:00 – Where AI fits in GXP versus non-GXP environments21:18 – What responsible AI really means in life sciences23:14 – The hidden risk of data residency and model drift26:21 – Leading multi-stakeholder projects without losing patience31:32 – Skills tech leaders need beyond technical delivery Praveen's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/praveen-gandepudi-varma-9b7919a3/ Subscribe to Leaders of Impact for more conversations with technology leaders driving real-world change. #LeadersOfImpact #LifeSciences #DigitalTransformation #ResponsibleAI #RegulatoryCompliance #AIinTech
Sep 15

How to Lead Deep Tech Startups From Idea to Market - Elena Bassiachvili - S1, Ep. 10

In this episode of Leaders of Impact, we are joined by Elena Bassiachvili, a technology leader with a career spanning embedded systems, firmware engineering, hardware, software, academia, and entrepreneurship. She has worked at Intel and Square, taught computer science and engineering, and now leads technology as Director at Stack, a startup accelerator focused on deep tech, biotech, and smart tech founders. In this conversation, Elena shares how a single classroom moment teaching hardware fundamentals ended up shaping a student's entire career, and what that taught her about impact. She talks about the shift from engineering thinking to leadership thinking, why technical credibility matters even when it isn't essential, and how she builds trust with engineering teams as a non-technical-first leader would. 00:13 – Welcome and introducing Elena Bassiachvili 01:12 – Elena's journey: engineering, academia, and entrepreneurship 03:27 – The teaching moment that changed a student's career path 06:18 – The shift from engineering to leadership 08:14 – How teaching experience shaped her leadership style 10:50 – Why technical credibility matters in leading engineers 12:41 – Advice for non-technical leaders leading technical teams 14:41 – Aligning expectations between engineering and business stakeholders 20:53 – What excites her most about AI today 22:04 – How AI is changing access to the startup journey 24:36 – Inside Stack's 18-month founder accelerator program 28:48 – Advice for aspiring leaders and founders Subscribe for weekly conversations with leaders making a real impact in technology, business, and entrepreneurship. #LeadersOfImpact #DeepTech #StartupLeadership #TechLeadership #Entrepreneurship #AIStartups #BiotechStartups #FounderJourney #EngineeringLeadership #WomenInTech #StartupAccelerator #ProductLeadership #GalaxyWeblinks
Sep 8

The Future Belongs to Human-Centered AI - Simon Ratcliffe- S1, Ep. 9

In this episode of Leaders of Impact, we are joined by Simon Ratcliffe, a technology leader with a career spanning finance, technology, governance, and education across more than three decades. He has served as a CIO advisor, board member, trustee, mentor, and keynote speaker, and is guided by a belief that successful transformation is fundamentally about people, process, and technology in that order. In this conversation, Simon traces his path from psychology to accounting to leading technology change, and shares why he thinks most people are approaching AI all wrong - mistaking simple automation for genuine intelligence. He unpacks the difference between AI-enabling your systems versus your vision, why "slowing down to go faster" is the only sustainable path through transformation, and why, after decades of change, he still believes people come before any piece of technology. 00:12 – Welcome and introducing Simon Ratcliffe 00:53 – Simon's path: from psychology to accounting to technology leadership 02:45 – When technology first entered the finance function 03:47 – Why we've forgotten to train people on the basics 06:00 – Fear-driven AI adoption and the "keep up" mindset 07:02 – IKEA's story: retraining 15,000 jobs instead of cutting them 08:12 – Why Simon has a problem with the phrase "AI" 08:36 – Automation vs. AI: the distinction most leaders miss 08:50 – A 1990s OCR story that mirrors today's AI hype 11:32 – Asking AI where AI fits in the business 13:11 – Why AI has to be a radical shift, not just faster automation 13:44 – Garbage in, garbage out: why prompting well matters 16:01 – Reversing the principle: showing people the art of the possible 16:59 – The two camps: unaware users and unrealistic expectations 17:24 – Why AI's data foundation is the real bottleneck 18:00 – Building a parallel ".AI" business to avoid disrupting the core 19:03 – Rising AI costs and the shift toward localized processing 19:49 – Simon's advice distilled: AI-enable your vision, not your systems 21:06 – Why some businesses just shouldn't AI-enable 22:04 – Why nobody can predict AI three years out 24:00 – The real cost and accuracy risks in scaling AI pilots 27:00 – Small language models as the answer to cost, accuracy, and carbon 29:49 – "Slow down to go faster": governance and guardrails in AI projects 36:20 – The achievements closest to his heart: a museum in VR and a pandemic teaching story 43:00 – Spotting the earliest signs a transformation is heading the wrong way 45:19 – Why people always come first, then process, then technology Simon's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/itevangelism/ Subscribe to Leaders of Impact for more conversations with technology leaders driving real-world change. #AILeadership #DigitalTransformation #FutureOfWork #TechLeadership #LeadersOfImpact
Sep 1

Where Legacy Telecom Meets the AI Frontier - Faisal Hanif – S1, Ep. 8

In this episode of Leaders of Impact, we are joined by Faisal Hanif, a technology leader with more than 25 years of experience across VoIP, real-time communication, telecom infrastructure, CPaaS, WebRTC, and now voice AI. His career spans hands-on architecture and engineering leadership building carrier-grade systems at scale, from early computer assembly work in the UAE to founding his own telecom ventures and now building next-generation voice AI products. In this conversation, Faisal traces a career that grew alongside the technology itself - from GW-BASIC and jumper-setting processors, through VoIP protocols and WebRTC innovation, to building a voice AI agent with near-zero latency and human-like interpretability. He shares why he leads engineering teams as a mentor rather than a manager, the philosophy of recognition over hierarchy, and a sharp, grounded take on what separates real AI development from API wrapping plus why building a product is the easy part compared to building a business. 00:12 – Welcome and introducing Faisal Hanif 00:54 – A career that grew with the technology: from GW-BASIC to processor jumpers 04:08 – The shift into IP telephony and early VoIP protocols 07:17 – Building Wi-Fi calling and founding his own telecom ventures 09:32 – Delivering lawful interception and voice-pattern solutions for U.S. clients 09:41 – Innovating healthcare and CPaaS products in the Nordic market 14:07 – Building a zero-code voice application platform 15:44 – Solving latency: building a sub-millisecond, interruptible voice AI agent 19:46 – Following your Ikigai: finding a lifelong fit in telecom and code 21:29 – The projects closest to his heart 24:10 – Leading as a mentor, not a manager 30:56 – Recognition, reward, and building team morale 33:08 – Getting teams to embrace process by owning it themselves 38:10 – Separating real AI development from API wrapping 42:16 – Two lessons for the next generation: never stop learning, and a product isn't a business Faisal's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/faisal-hanif-ai-telecom/ Subscribe to Leaders of Impact for more conversations with technology leaders driving real-world change. #VoiceAI #Telecom #WebRTC #TechLeadership #LeadersOfImpact
Aug 19

Where Finance Meets Agentic AI - Rahul Bhatia - S1, Ep. 7

In this episode of Leaders of Impact, we are joined by Rahul Bhatia, a Solution Director and SAP Cloud Solution Architect with more than 20 years of international experience across enterprise finance architecture, SAP transformation, and AI-driven financial process optimization. He currently leads high-impact finance transformation programs managing over £1 billion in annual public expenditure, and is the creator of two proprietary frameworks - DFRA and FAST, built to reduce risk and accelerate business value in complex finance transformations. In this conversation, Rahul walks through his proudest project to date: migrating ten different ERP systems into a single SAP cloud platform for a major UK city council, without disrupting a single existing process. He breaks down how his DFRA framework cuts financial close time by 40%, why AI is now "bread and butter" for finance transformation but still needs a human in the loop, and what he believes the finance function will look like once agentic AI takes over the routine work. 00:13 – Welcome and introducing Rahul Bhatia 00:34 – Rahul's background: SAP, enterprise finance, and 25 years in the UK 01:18 – Rahul's journey: starting from a book on SAP architecture 02:50 – The transformation closest to his heart 03:11 – Migrating 10 ERP systems into one for a major UK city council 04:20 – Deploying his own DFRA framework in a live public-sector program 05:24 – Why finance data is the real foundation transformation programs miss 06:27 – How the DFRA framework cuts financial close time by 40% 07:19 – Protecting accuracy without disrupting existing processes 08:13 – Why SAP's cloud model is built to protect legacy processes 09:03 – How much AI is already built into the framework 11:16 – Introducing FAST: Finance Architecture, Strategy and Technology 12:44 – Identifying and de-risking finance transformation programs 14:28 – The right questions CFOs and CIOs should ask before approving transformation 16:19 – Career advice: SAP e-learning and building a technical foundation 17:56 – What's missing in how future enterprise architects are trained 19:14 – How working across countries shaped his approach to transformation 21:03 – How agentic AI will reshape the finance function in five years 23:39 – Two lessons for future technology and transformation leaders Rahul's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-b-017b4828/ Subscribe to Leaders of Impact for more conversations with technology leaders driving real-world change. #AgenticAI #FinanceTransformation #EnterpriseArchitecture #TechLeadership #LeadersOfImpact
Aug 18

The AI Shift Every Leader Should Understand - Prasad Prabhakaran - S1, Ep. 6

In this episode of Leaders of Impact, we are joined by Prasad Prabhakaran, a technology leader with more than two decades of experience helping organizations navigate technology change, from Microsoft and Samsung to startups, consulting, and enterprise transformation. He now leads AI initiatives focused on moving organizations beyond experimentation and into trusted, scalable AI systems that deliver measurable business outcomes. In this conversation, Prasad traces how today's AI-assisted coding tools were seeded decades earlier in the "code maintainability index" era and shares the origin story of the developer center-of-excellence model he built at Microsoft , a template still used by system integrators today. He unpacks why so many AI pilots never make it to production, introduces the concept of the "verification tax," and lays out what he believes will separate the organizations that win with AI from the ones left behind over the next five years. 00:12 – Welcome and introducing Prasad Prabhakaran 01:11 – Prasad's journey: from Microsoft's developer platforms to enterprise AI leadership 03:42 – The early 2000s roots of today's AI-assisted coding 08:24 – The real problem behind AI: earning the trust of the data consumer 14:09 – Building Microsoft's first developer center-of-excellence model 16:02 – Writing an HBR-backed book on becoming an AI-native enterprise 21:05 – Why the book is structured around challenges, causes, and a playbook 27:23 – Why so many AI pilots never make it to production 33:01 – The accountability gap: who owns an AI agent's mistakes? 36:51 – Why "the technology searching for a solution" is the first failure mode 38:24 – Introducing the "verification tax" 40:59 – Hiring "who, not how": picking the right team for AI transformation 41:09 – What will be true about successful organizations in five years 47:58 – Why an innovation culture matters more than any single AI model 48:05 – The regulatory gap: the biggest risk to moving fast with AI Prasad's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/prasadprabhakaran/ Subscribe to Leaders of Impact for more conversations with technology leaders driving real-world change.

Leaders of Impact is a podcast hosted by Vikram Jain, featuring conversations with entrepreneurs, executives, innovators, and changemakers. Each episode explores leadership, growth, decision-making, and the experiences that shape impactful careers and organizations. Stories, insights, and lessons from leaders making a difference.

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LeadersofImpact Podcast
Years Active

2026
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13
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Clean
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