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Varun Sureshkumar posted thisMost release teams measure velocity. Almost none measure the cost of it. Release frequency gets the dashboard. The applause. Defect escape rate gets ignored - until production exposes it. I've watched teams double their deployment cadence and declare victory. Incidents doubled quietly alongside it. Velocity without integrity is just accelerated failure. #ReleaseManagement #EnterpriseIT #ProgramManagement #DevOps
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Varun Sureshkumar posted thisThree massive IT outages in 2024. One common thread. CrowdStrike - 8.5M Windows systems crashed worldwide. A faulty update pushed globally with no staged rollout and no automated rollback. Recovery took days and cost billions. AT&T - 12-hour nationwide blackout. 25,000 emergency 911 calls lost. A single misconfigured network element. No peer review. No named go/no-go owner. The FCC called it a failure to follow standard procedures. Azure + CrowdStrike - one failure became a full cascade. An Azure outage the day before had already weakened dependencies nobody had mapped. When CrowdStrike hit, there was no buffer. Not freak accidents. Predictable failures dressed up as surprises. Every release plan needs three answers before go-live: → Do we have a rollback? → Who owns the go/no-go call? → What breaks if this fails? If any of those is unclear - you're not ready to ship. #ReleaseManagement #EnterpriseIT #ITGovernance #ProgramManagement #DeliveryLeadership
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Varun Sureshkumar posted thisI've been in enterprise IT for over two decades. And I'm still a student. Not because I have to be. Because I chose to be. Over the past year I've been learning AI - deep learning, Python, prompt engineering, hands-on Claude experimentation. Some days it's a structured course. Most days it's just tinkering after a long workday. Balancing it with a full-time demanding role isn't always pretty. But every concept I pick up connects back to my work in ways I didn't expect. AI isn't replacing the judgment I've built over the years. It's sharpening it. If you're a senior professional wondering whether it's too late to start - it isn't! What's one thing you recently taught yourself that changed how you work? #ContinuousLearning #AI #LearningInPublic #ProgramManagement #Leadership
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Varun Sureshkumar posted thisNobody talks about the emotional load of being the one who has to say: "We're not ready to ship." I've said it more times than I can count. And it never gets easier. Not because the decision is hard to make. But because of everything that comes with it. The executive who's already told the board it's launching this quarter. The engineering team that worked nights and weekends to get here. The product manager who's been promising this to customers for months. The quiet voice in your own head asking - am I being too cautious? Am I the bottleneck? Am I wrong? You feel all of it at once. And then you say it anyway. Here's what I've learned after 20+ years of making that call: Saying "we're not ready" is not a failure of delivery. It's the delivery. Anyone can green light a release. It takes real judgment, real courage to stop one. The Release Manager's job isn't to make everyone comfortable. It's to make sure the right thing ships at the right time. Even when that's an uncomfortable truth. The moments I'm most proud of in my career aren't the 2000+ releases we shipped on time. They're the ones we didn't ship - and why is that? Because protecting the customer, the team, and the organization from a bad release is just as valuable as delivering a good one. If you're in program or release management, next time you feel that weight, know this: That discomfort you feel before saying it? That's not weakness. That's exactly what good judgment feels like. Have you ever had to make that call? How did it go? #ReleaseManagement #ProgramManagement #Leadership #TechLeadership #EnterpriseIT #DeliveryExcellence
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Varun Sureshkumar posted thisI've been studying deep learning lately. And one concept stopped me cold. Overfitting. For the non-ML folks: overfitting is when a model is trained so precisely on past data that it fails to handle anything new. It memorizes instead of learns. It performs perfectly in the lab and falls apart in the real world. I couldn't stop thinking about how often I've seen this in program management. We call it over-planning. A plan so detailed, so perfectly engineered for the known variables, that the first unexpected dependency - a delayed vendor, a scope change, a key resource out sick - and it breaks the whole thing. The model couldn't generalize. Neither could the plan. In deep learning, the fix for overfitting is called regularization. You deliberately simplify the model. You train it to handle noise, not just clean data. You build in tolerance for the unexpected. In program management, we have our own version of that: → Buffer capacity built into release windows → Decision rights defined before a crisis hits → Escalation paths that don't require a perfect storm to activate → Plans that are directionally right, not exhaustively detailed The best programs I've run weren't the most meticulously planned. They were the most resilient. There's a difference between a plan that looks good in a review deck and a plan that holds up when reality shows up. Studying AI is making me a better Program Manager. I didn't expect that. What's an unexpected field that's shaped how you think about your work? #ProgramManagement #DeepLearning #AI #ReleaseManagement #Leadership #ContinuousLearning
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Varun Sureshkumar posted thisGetting back to sharing more regularly. Glad to be here. I've been managing enterprise IT releases & programs for years. I thought I had a solid release checklist. Then I fed it to Claude. It flagged 4 things my team and I had missed. Not because we were careless. But because we were too close to it. Here's what stood out: → A rollback step that assumed infra access that isn't always guaranteed during off-hours releases → A comms notification that only looped in internal teams but not the downstream vendor who needed a heads up → A validation step with no defined owner (everyone's job = no one's job) → A dependency on a config change that had no confirmation checkpoint before go-live None of these were catastrophic in isolation. Together? They could have made for a very long night. I'm not saying AI replaces the experience of a seasoned Release/Program Manager. It doesn't. But it's a remarkably good second pair of eyes — one that doesn't get fatigued, doesn't assume context, and asks the questions we sometimes forget to ask ourselves. I'm still learning how to use Claude well. But this one experiment shifted how I think about release readiness reviews. If you're in program or release management and haven't tried this yet — it's worth 20 minutes of your time. Happy to share the prompt I used. Just drop a comment or DM me. #ReleaseManagement #ProgramManagement #EnterpriseIT #AITools #Claude #ContinuousImprovement
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Varun Sureshkumar shared thisWell articulated. Cut through the cloud vs. datacenter noise & discover what truly drives smart infrastructure decisions!Varun Sureshkumar shared thisCloud First, Datacenter Next: A Pragmatic Approach, In my view, is a practical way to approach infrastructure decisions. Based on years of working with both, I’ve shared how I think about the trade-offs between cloud and on-prem.Beyond the Hype: A Practical Guide to Cloud and Datacenter DecisionsBeyond the Hype: A Practical Guide to Cloud and Datacenter Decisions
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Varun Sureshkumar shared thisFantastic summary of the lessons. 👏🏽Varun Sureshkumar shared thisLessons from the #ipl2023 finals in pictures: 1. Calm "during" the storm: trust in your team; your anxiety does no good 2. Embrace your team member when he/she is most down 3. Lift and acknowledge the contributor/s publicly 4. Sometimes it is not about sharing the limelight, but giving it away completely. Show your appreciation loudly. 5. Lead from the front; but enjoy the team revel in a victory from the back 6. Masterclass in leadership during the awards ceremony: have empathy, understand what the team members are going through when they are non performing, mentor them as needed- that's the role of the leader. Not to show frustration and shift blame. 7. Show emotion and celebrate the victories. For those who know #thala , we know this was a precious moment. 8. Most important lesson: as a coach, trust that the learning and process will come through. Do not break someone's rhythm/confidence. 9. Respect thy opponent. Everyone is playing their part and there is no need for animosity once the game is over. 10. Acknowledge your supporters. Many times, we are where we are because of our support system only. 11. Involve the family. They are our backbone and biggest support; give them credit 12. Just my personal favourite moment: no one and I mean no one can match #dhoni in his keeping. All the AI and ML in the world cannot even measure his reaction time, forget replicating it! This is just the magic of Mahi!! And finally, culture is the secret sauce that keeps this #csk team together through thick and thin, and most importantly, helps them win consistently. This requires a whole different study of the #winner5! #sports #leadership #cricket #learning #cskvsgt #msdhoni #ipl
Varun Sureshkumar replied to a comment
3mo
David Weitzenfeld,JD, CPA That's a really elegant way to put it - guardrails with freedom inside them. That maps perfectly to how the best release governance works too.
You define the non-negotiables: compliance checkpoints, rollback criteria, go/no-go thresholds. But within those? You give the team room to adapt, problem-solve, and move.
The mistake I've seen most often is confusing the guardrails with the entire plan and end up over-constraining instead of protecting them.
Curious how you think about where to draw that line in AI systems - especially when the guardrails themselves need to evolve as the model learns?
Varun Sureshkumar replied to a comment
3mo
Jaspreet Sidhu That's a great point i.e., the human element is exactly what makes this analogy so interesting to me. Neural networks are literally designed around how humans learn, so it makes sense that the failure modes map across too.
What strikes me most is that in both cases. AI models and project plans - the overconfidence comes from training on 'clean' data. In real programs, the messy variables are the norm, not the exception.
Are you seeing AI/automation change how teams approach planning and delivery in your work?
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Varun Sureshkumar liked thisVarun Sureshkumar liked thisHad the opportunity to meet Mr. Elangovan of SNQS, one of the most respected personalities in the Tiruppur business community. The meeting was primarily a respect visit, and I was fortunate to receive his advice and blessings on business. It is always a pleasure to interact with people who have built enduring organisations and earned the respect of an entire industry. Thank you, sir, for your time and encouragement.
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Varun Sureshkumar reacted on thisVarun Sureshkumar reacted on thisHanging up the cleats to enter this next chapter called Retirement. To all the people who were positive influences on me -- From the Calverton Grumman Flight Test Center to my virtual working life at FIS -- THANK YOU ALL!
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Varun Sureshkumar reacted on thisVarun Sureshkumar reacted on thisI’ve been wanting to write about this for quite some time. And today, I decided not to skip it. Sometimes, bringing home a pet can make a home start feeling alive again. If you’ve experienced it, you know exactly what I mean. We often think of dogs and pets as companions. But they do much more than that. A reason to wake up. A reason to step outside. A reason to laugh at something silly after a difficult day. As a doctor, I have seen how healing companionship can be. And how having a pet can positively influence both mental and physical wellbeing. Having a pet at home is not just emotionally comforting. It can reduce stress, ease loneliness, and naturally encourage movement (especially dogs, who absolutely won’t let you skip that walk). And for many people, they offer something rare: Non-judgmental presence. No advice. No criticism. No expectations. Just quiet companionship. For older adults, pets can bring structure and purpose. For children, they can teach empathy and responsibility. For stressed adults, sometimes the pause button they didn’t know they needed. But pets are also a real responsibility. They are not therapy tools or accessories. Bring one home only if you’re ready to care for them for life. But if you have ever been greeted at the door like you are the most important person in the world… You already understand the medicine. P.S Pet parents, what has your pet changed in your life? ❤️
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Varun Sureshkumar reacted on thisVarun Sureshkumar reacted on thisExcited to share that our team won the Deloitte WoW Product Bootcamp!! This experience was centered around modern product thinking — leveraging Value Slicing, cross-functional collaboration, and outcome-driven delivery to create incremental business impact while staying aligned to a long-term strategic North Star. We leveraged the latest AI capabilities to accelerate product delivery and enhance decision-making by: * Utilizing Generative AI and Agentic AI workflows to streamline ideation, requirement refinement, and solution exploration * Applying AI-assisted approaches for rapid prototyping, workflow orchestration, and backlog acceleration * Leveraging AI-driven insights to improve value identification, prioritization, and outcome measurement * Exploring how AI can enable faster iteration cycles, improved collaboration, and scalable product operations * Embedding AI-first thinking into the product lifecycle to drive efficiency, innovation, and measurable business value Grateful to our coaches and mentors for their constant guidance, feedback, and leadership throughout the journey. Truly an incredible learning experience!
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Varun Sureshkumar reacted on thisVarun Sureshkumar reacted on thisWhat an incredible experience at the IBM Power Up – Wipro Day India held in Mumbai on 15 May 2026 — energizing, collaborative, and strongly focused on driving enterprise transformation at scale. The event successfully brought together leaders and teams from IBM and Wipro on a shared platform to align on strategic priorities, deepen awareness of IBM’s product-led capabilities, and accelerate joint go-to-market initiatives. What stood out most was the strong alignment between IBM and Wipro in driving enterprise transformation through AI, Hybrid Cloud, Automation, and Infrastructure capabilities combined with Wipro’s deep industry expertise. Key focus areas included: Hybrid & Sovereign Cloud strategies AI-ready data platforms including watsonx Automation and infrastructure modernization Industry-focused initiatives across BFSI, Energy, and Government Stronger account alignment and joint go-to-market execution The session reinforced the strength of the IBM–Wipro partnership and highlighted a clear shift from strategic alignment to tangible action across real client opportunities. The message was clear: partnership-led transformation is critical to driving scalable and sustainable growth. A heartfelt thank you to the leadership teams from both organizations for driving this collaboration forward and setting the tone for a strong and outcome-focused partnership. Special thanks to Sandip Patel, Vishal Dixit, Gaurav Agarwal, Geeta Gurnani, Namrata Singh, Yukti Punjabi, Ramachandran Padmanabhan, Ruchika Rattan, Sam Restifo, Rhea Dugal-Hazarika, Anand Jayaraman, Upendra Sai Matsa, Prerna Tyagi, Siddhesh Naik, Rohit Sood, Shan Vimalkumar, Gaurav Lamba, Salman Faizi, Rohan Sontakke, Yugal Sharma, Rahul Raina, Gagandeep Singh, Angela Harris, Swati Sinha, Samir G., Anshul Sharma, Shivajirao Nimbalkar (NIMBA), Rishav Raj, Gaurav Shukla, Harshil Turakhia, SoYoung Lim, Suhasini Ramakrishnan, and all teams involved for their support and collaboration. A special note of appreciation to Vishal and Namrata for their leadership and the active engagement from the Wipro team throughout the session. The enthusiasm, openness, and collaborative spirit demonstrated by both organizations were truly impressive and reflected a strong alignment on joint opportunity creation and go-to-market strategies. Proud of what we have built together — and even more excited about converting this momentum into tangible business outcomes for our clients.🚀 #IBM #Wipro #PowerUp #Partnership #EnterpriseTransformation #HybridCloud #AI #watsonx #Automation #BFSI #Government #Energy #Leadership #Collaboration #DigitalTransformation
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Varun Sureshkumar reacted on thisVarun Sureshkumar reacted on thisMost people see the degree. They are unaware of the journey behind it. 🎓 MBA in Strategy & Leadership — Done. What this really looked like: → Sleepless nights → Early mornings after late study sessions → Managing responsibilities of a young family → Endless tests, assignments, and a demanding capstone → Showing up… even on the days it felt overwhelming There were moments of doubt. There were moments of exhaustion. But there was never a moment I considered quitting. Because growth doesn’t happen in comfort. It happens in commitment. This journey gave me more than a degree— It strengthened my perspective on strategy, leadership, and resilience, and gifted me friendships I’ll carry forward. Grateful for the support system that made this possible. 🙏 On to building what’s next. 🚀 #MBA #Strategy #Leadership #Resilience #ContinuousLearning #GrowthMindset #ProfessionalJourney
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Varun Sureshkumar liked thisVarun Sureshkumar liked thisHi all, After nearly 38 years at TIAA, I have retired and am looking forward to the next chapter. Looking back, it’s hard to put into words what this journey has meant to me. I’ve had the privilege of witnessing so much growth and change during my time at TIAA, but the constant has always been the incredible people focused on serving our individual and institutional clients. To my friends, mentors, and colleagues—thank you for making these past four decades so rewarding. Sharing this mission with such talented and dedicated individuals has been a true honor. Thank you all for being part of such a wonderful career! Tom
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Varun Sureshkumar reacted on thisVarun Sureshkumar reacted on thisI’m excited to share that I’ve started a new role as Senior Manager -Collaborations Platforms at Celestica! I’m grateful for the opportunity to join such a dynamic and innovative organization, and I’m looking forward to working with talented teams to build meaningful partnerships, drive collaboration, and create impact. A big thank you to everyone who has supported me along the way. I’m excited for what’s ahead and always open to connecting with others in the space.
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Varun Sureshkumar liked thisVarun Sureshkumar liked thisSaaS made work digital. AI is making it autonomous. Manish Bafna, SVP of Engineering at Responsive, points to a shift that is quietly redefining knowledge work. We are moving from tools that assist…to systems that act. • 𝐒𝐚𝐚𝐒 𝐈𝐬 𝐄𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐞𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐬 Traditional SaaS platforms streamlined processes. Agentic AI is now stepping in to execute tasks, reducing manual effort across complex workflows. • 𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐥𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐈𝐬 𝐁𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐑𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 From responding to RFPs to managing enterprise data, AI agents can understand context, generate outputs, and continuously improve with usage. • 𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐔𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐓𝐨 𝐎𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 Employees are no longer just operating tools. They are guiding AI systems, focusing on strategy while delegating execution. • 𝐒𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐆𝐞𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 Agentic AI compresses timelines, enabling enterprises to respond faster, make decisions quicker, and operate with greater agility. • 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥 𝐁𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 As AI systems take on more responsibility, governance, transparency, and human oversight will define successful adoption. The bigger shift is this: SaaS is no longer just software you use. It is becoming a system that works alongside you, and increasingly, for you. #ETCIO #AI #AgenticAI #SaaS #EnterpriseIT #DigitalTransformation #FutureOfWork #CIOLeadership #TechLeadership #WhatsBuzzing
Education
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Licenses & Certifications
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Project Management Office (PMO) Standard
Keane Inc
Issued Expires -
Project Management Office (PMO) Basic
Keane Inc
Issued Expires
Honors & Awards
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TIAA RST 2020 People Choice Awards
TIAA
Awarded in 3 Categories
* Unsung Hero
* Prized Partner
* Dream Team -
TIAA Financial Services (TFS) Technology 2019 Award
TIAA
Awarded for Outstanding performance in 2019 for delivering excellence and leading the RST Release Program Management Team at TIAA.
Languages
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English
Full professional proficiency
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Tamil
Full professional proficiency
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Telegu
Professional working proficiency
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Hindi
Professional working proficiency
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French
Elementary proficiency
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