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 Kumud was fascinated by digital electronics from an early age; combined with a prodigious capacity for memorizing acronyms, a career in technology was inevitable. Marketing self-taught programming skills to local schools and businesses, often working on home-made microcomputers, he credits his teenage entrepreneurial efforts for preserving his social skills. As a student of electronic engineering, he distinguished himself by avoiding ‘anything more than 9 volts’. Originally trained as a professional engineer, he re-focused on his computing interests and now considers himself a hybrid business-technology professional. After bouncing between different technologies, several employers and multiple continents he landed in his current role of CIO at Direct Energy, based in Toronto.
Having a healthy (but respectful) aversion to legacy systems, he has been a serial early adopter of new technologies and pioneer of contemporary IT management techniques. An enthusiastic developer of talent with a passion for innovation, he leads a team at Direct Energy which has attracted numerous accolades, including InfoWorld100 and CIO100 awards. In 2009, Direct Energy was named by Computerworld as ‘one of the best 100 places to work in IT’.
Also a member of the Direct Energy Executive Committee, Kumud is a chartered engineer, a Fellow of both the British Computer Society and the Institution of Engineering & Technology. In 2008 he was named as ‘best in class’ among Computerworld’s 100 Premier IT Leaders.
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 Presentation
The Role of IT in Mergers & Acquisitions
Direct Energy, a subsidiary of the UK-based energy company Centrica, has grown into the leading competitive energy retail supplier in North America and Canada’s 30th largest company. The speaker will discuss the role of IT in successfully completing over 40 acquisitions over an 8 year period. The presentation will focus on what was done and what has been learned: how Direct Energy approaches acquisitions; the role IT plays before, during and after a deal; the importance of establishing a prioritization process; and managing staff through dramatic change.
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