Ashish Gupta
CIO and CSIO, NEC Corporation India
As the chief information officer (CIO) and chief information security officer (CISO) at NEC Corporation India, Ashish Gupta oversees the company’s digitalisation, security and IT operations. His responsibilities encompass policy creation, budgeting and ensuring NEC’s infrastructure remains robust in order to support client needs and project delivery.
He has been instrumental in driving several projects, including an employee service desk (IT, HR, admin and finance) and other intranet-based applications such as a learning management system; manpower requisition; employee engagement systems such as Hot Desk and Covid Permit; a vendor and visitor management system; multiple finance, HR and corporate dashboards; a content management system managed with SharePoint; and a travel requisition system.
Gupta emphasises the evolving challenges in IT management amidst rising user expectations. In a dynamic technological landscape, end users demand rapid solutions to their technical issues, yet balancing this with stringent security policies can create friction. “Users expect immediate responses to their service requests, but the security measures necessary to protect data often restrict access, posing an obstacle to their productivity,” he explains.
As for trends in technology, he identifies artificial intelligence (AI) as a game changer reshaping the sector, noting how it enables faster coding, manages employee engagement and autonomously resolves issues in data centres. “With machine learning, chatbots are evolving daily, and now we have systems that detect anomalies, take corrective action and close tickets without human intervention,” he says.
His leadership style centres on collaboration and team empowerment. “I support my team when mistakes are made, as it fosters learning and growth. I also value experimentation–when the fear of failure is removed, my team can freely innovate and bring new ideas to the table,” he says. He embraces a consultative approach, preferring a cohesive team environment to a directive, top-down style, reinforcing NEC’s ethos of inclusivity and innovation.
Asked about his most memorable projects, he highlights a significant data migration effort. “We migrated our Microsoft tenant data for 2,500 employees from Japan to the Asia-Pacific region without disrupting business operations,” he says.
Gupta began his career as a network administrator at Newtimes Jones HK Limited. He has also worked with William E. Connor & Associates in the past, where he spearheaded a new customer order tracking application roll-out and drove asset tracking mechanisms using the latest technologies.
