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Gartner Expert
Rakesh Kumar
Practice Vice President
Rakesh Kumar is a Managing Vice President in Gartner Research, where he leads the Infrastructure Strategies team. With more than 28 years of international experience, Mr. Kumar is a recognized leader in data center infrastructure, digital innovation, consolidation, and cloud and hosting options.
Mr. Kumar also leads the research in data center power and cooling issues and is an established international authority in environmental and "green" IT strategies. He has worked with the European Union and various governments around the world on energy-related technology issues. Mr. Kumar has spent considerable time in India working with many companies and government departments. He is one of the world's foremost experts on the development of core IT infrastructure in India.
Previous experience
Mr. Kumar joined Gartner in April 2005 with the acquisition of Meta Group, where he was senior vice president and co-research director (EMEA). In this position, apart from his core research areas, he drove changes in the European research organization and was instrumental in delivering Meta Group's leading Operations Excellence transformation program. Before Meta Group, Mr. Kumar was EMEA marketing manager for HP's commercial Unix and NT business. He has also held various positions with IBM in software development, sales and consultancy management. Mr Kumar is a part qualified Chartered Accountant, having trained with KPMG.
Professional background
Meta Group, Senior Vice President, 6 years
Hewlett-Packard, Marketing Manager, 4 years
IBM, Director, 7 years
Education
M.B.A., Nottingham University
B.S., Aeronautical Engineering, University of London
Top Issues That I Help Clients Address
How should CIOs manage their budgets
What should a five-year data center strategy look like
How should organizations develop their disaster recovery and business continuity plans
What are the best practices for data center consolidation
Should organizations build their own data center or use a cloud or hosting provider