Mahadevan Ramesh graduated from IIT Kanpur (five-year integrated MSc degree in Physics) and earned a PhD (Physics) from the Ohio State University, USA. Following a research stint in the electrical and computer engineering department in Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, he worked for Storage Technology Corporation (now a part of Sun Microsystems/Oracle), and for Maxtor Corporation (now a part of Seagate Technologies) at Colorado, USA. He held leadership positions in global product teams and spent considerable time on the factory floor in Singapore, working with stakeholders from many different cultures, and learnt first hand the importance of soft skills. He is currently an adjunct professor in the SSN School of Management and Computer Applications, and he also consults on management and engineering, specializing in production and operations management.