How IT Leaders Drive Business Success: Insights From Ganesh Iyer

Transforming IT For Business Success #aiinbusiness #ittransformation #biotechit 

Hi Everyone and Welcome to Biotech Bytes by The Swan Group Channel

Have you ever wondered what it takes to lead IT transformations in the dynamic biotech industry? Join me as I speak with Ganesh Iyer, CIO of Harmony Biosciences, who shares his inspiring journey from sales to IT leadership. Please visit our website to get more information: https://swangroup.net/ 

We discuss ERP transformations, leveraging AI and data analytics, and aligning IT with business goals for real success. Ganesh reveals valuable lessons on leadership, teamwork, and navigating the fast-changing tech landscape. This episode has actionable insights for aspiring CIOs, IT professionals, and business leaders.

Watch now to learn how IT can drive business success and innovation! Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share your thoughts in the comments.

Links from this episode:

• Get to know more about Ganesh Iyer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ganeshiyer2002
• Learn more about Harmony Biosciences: https://www.harmonybiosciences.com
• Get to know more about Steven Swan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/swangroup
  
  

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🔎 Related Phrases:

Transforming IT For Business Success, IT Leadership Insights, Ganesh Iyer On IT Success, ERP Transformation In Biotech, Aligning IT With Business Goals, AI And Data Analytics In IT, CIO Leadership Journey, Leadership Tips For IT Professionals, Cloud Computing In Biotech IT, IT Strategies For Business Growth, Building A Career In Technology Leadership

#cio #itleadership #businesssuccess #biotech #technologytrends #erp

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:47 About Ganesh Iyer
• 4:55 Boosted credentials, gained confidence, perceived positively
• 8:05 You've always had confidence and ability
• 11:09 Learning programming essential; focus on business problem-solving
• 16:33 Adapt communication between technology and business
• 19:07 AI is confused with analytics and automation
• 20:28 Educate business on AI, analytics, automation
• 24:19 AI adoption often driven by reactionary FOMO
• 28:16 Educate, assign homework, and develop strategy collaboratively
• 32:18 What makes Harmony unique for potential employees
• 37:18 Cloud security is complex; business outweighs passion
• 47:10 Leadership lessons from Harmony Biosciences

Transcript

Ganesh Iyer [00:00:00]:
What I've learned at Deloitte is never go into a discussion empty handed over the point of view, put it up for everybody to review it, allow everybody to poke holes on it. And what you get at the end of the day is a pure, complete, aligned solution that the business always think that it is theirs.

Steve Swan [00:00:30]:
Hello and welcome to Biotech Bytes where we chat with IT leaders within biotechnology about some of the latest and greatest trends. Today I have the pleasure of being joined by Ganesh Iyer, CIO of Harmony Biosciences. Thanks for joining us, Ganesh.

Ganesh Iyer [00:00:46]:
Thank you, Steve, for having me on this show.

Steve Swan [00:00:49]:
Appreciate you taking time with us. Yes, thank you. So I was like starting out with just you in general, right? Just give me a quick, give our audience a quick, you know, synopsis of you, your background and how you got to, you know, where you are, the CIO of Harmony.

Ganesh Iyer [00:01:08]:
So it's a funny, very funny story, right? Never thought I'll be a cio. I started my career as sales rep, right? Got into sales, sold a lot of consumer products and then I stumbled upon being an expat in Africa in product management because that was my passion and what that led me to be as an expat was to manage the EDP department. So I go a long way, right? The gray hairs can say that those days it was called EDP Electronic Data Processing and the company that I was working was for were implementing barn, which was an erp, right? I never knew that technology was about implementing processes. It was all about coding that I knew about it, right? And I hated it. I hated coding, I could not code. But having been part of that team implementing BON really interested me in erps. And that's when I got into SAP. Luckily again where one of India's premier companies were looking for folks with ERP experience.

Ganesh Iyer [00:02:39]:
Those days, if you had ERP experience, no matter which erp, you had a job and you had a good paying job, right? So I made hay while the sun shined, you know, and got into the ERP bandwagon and came here to the US And I still remember my first engagement was at Shell Texaco and product management and pricing being what I've always wanted to do. I ended up doing the pricing module in SAP and I actually did the whole pricing configuration for Shell Texaco back in 98, right. And then of course I slowly transitioned into integrations and Oracle financials and from 2001 onwards I started doing Oracle. I'm a big proponent of Oracle. I think Oracle works beautifully. Very passionate about Oracle and one Implementation led to another and I did a lot of ERP transformation projects. I think a lot of things changed when I joined Deloitte. It gave me a different perspective to transformation.

Ganesh Iyer [00:03:56]:
Right. Other than just being a technology and a technical configuration, kind of a functional consultant, I became more as a solution architect, a business solution architect. That kind of kindled my interest in processes. Right. And I became very customer focused. So that was a huge shift for me from a career standpoint, I think the other thing was, of course, Intercept from Deloitte. When I came into Intercept, I think Intercept gave me a different perspective and a confidence, right. That we did a lot of things that normally were not done so fast, Right.

Ganesh Iyer [00:04:47]:
And they'd fail doing these things at Intercept. So when I joined and I made it happen, there was a lot of confidence reposed in me that I could do what could not be done. Right. I don't mean to sound arrogant here. Right. But I think that kind of changed a lot of things around me, the way people started perceiving me. So as you know, what I did at Intercept really kind of helped me boost my credentials with the then cfo, right. Who then moved from Intercept to Harmony, and he felt that I was the right guy to do what needed to be done by a CIO here at Harmony.

Ganesh Iyer [00:05:42]:
Right. And the beauty is there are two kinds of companies or three kind of companies that I normally bracket. One of the small emerging companies, one of the medium to slightly bigger size companies, and the third one, these are the humongous companies like the jjs and the Merck's. Right. Obviously, my interest has never been with the bigger guys. Because you're a small fish in a huge sea, right? I like to be a big fish in a small pond. Right. Because you can showcase what you can do.

Ganesh Iyer [00:06:21]:
You can affect that change. Right. And as a leader, it is very important because you don't face all those bureaucratic politics and what you call the amount of. How do you say what you got to prove to people that, you know, this is how you got to do it or take time to do something, which is very simple. You can do all that in. In a company, Harmony size. Right. And I'll tell you, I love being part of Harmony.

Ganesh Iyer [00:06:59]:
I love being part of the people within Harmony. Right. I think the CEO sets the way we work as a team. Right. And it's a lot of positiveness. So for those who are listening to this, right. I'm also marketing Harmony. If you want to come and work for Harmony, I think it's one of the Best places to work.

Ganesh Iyer [00:07:23]:
One of the best places to work, right? Because everybody within Harmony is really good at what they do. They're very nice people. They're very accommodative, right. They want to bring the best out of each of us, right. So that helps me a lot. Personally, for me, when, when I get, I get pumped up, I kind of produce the best. And I think, I think right from Deloitte to Intercept to Harmony, it's, it's really helped me go the up upward way, you know, in my career.

Steve Swan [00:07:57]:
I'd say with you, just talking about you, that you've always had the ability. I mean, first of all, you did hit the right thing. Erp. Lots of CIOs come from either erp. Infrastructure, perfect move. You know, you didn't know it at the time, but great move. Secondly, I think you always had the confidence, but you needed to hear it and you heard it at Intercept and then you started looking around saying, man, I can do this. And then when you got brought over to your new place, you just spread your wings and started going, you know, and, and it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's your domain, it's your place, you feel comfortable, it's your sandbox.

Steve Swan [00:08:33]:
It's, you know, and it's. Now you can really do your thing. And it's going extremely well for you, which.

Ganesh Iyer [00:08:39]:
Absolutely.

Steve Swan [00:08:39]:
Awesome. Congratulations.

Ganesh Iyer [00:08:40]:
Absolutely. And I think, I think also for a lot of people, right. It's very important to have the right kind of mentors at the right time in your career. So I have, I have a few of them. Right. So one of them was a very big influence on me. Very positive person. Right.

Ganesh Iyer [00:09:03]:
Even in a downfall, you only saw the positive side of things, which helped me look at the positive side of every downfall that I've had. Right. I've never thought of it as a downfall. It's always a learning experience. Right. I had another person, a partner at Deloitte who had so much of confidence in me. Right. And even today I do discuss a lot of things with him.

Ganesh Iyer [00:09:33]:
Right. And I always, I believed in this. And I am a consensus cio. I am not a CIO who kind of drives my way. I come with a point of view. And this is what I've learned at Deloitte, which is part of my life now. Right. What I've learned at Deloitte is never go into a discussion empty handed, go with a point of view, put it up for everybody to review it, allow everybody to poke holes on it.

Ganesh Iyer [00:10:13]:
And what you get at the end of the day is a pure, complete, aligned solution that the business always think that it is theirs.

Steve Swan [00:10:28]:
And also don't. Well, also don't stay married to your idea, you know, don't, don't, don't, don't.

Ganesh Iyer [00:10:34]:
And that a lot of we technology guys have that inclination to do, right? We all, we all are so over passionate and we think what we, what we think is if I can do it, why can't, why can't the business do it? Why can't they understand it? Right? But we have to understand that we don't understand what the business does either, right? So it is very important to come to a common ground and allow them to drive it.

Steve Swan [00:11:01]:
Yeah, right. It's funny you're saying all this because, and we've talked about our kids in the past during some of our conversations and my daughter is in school and she's doing data science and analytics and so on and so forth and she keeps saying to me, just like you, right? I don't want to be a programmer, dad, I hate it. I said, but you got to learn it, the language and what they do because first of all, you know, it's, you don't like it. But second of all, if you're only programming, that job is going to get outsourced anyway. So I said get, get in bed with the business and solve problems, learn what they're doing. And she's like, really? I'm like, that's what you got to do and that's where you went and that's what you did. So it's, it's, you're, you're, you're, you're proof that that's where it goes.

Ganesh Iyer [00:11:46]:
Absolutely. And, and I, I keep telling my team this as well, right? Our job is that of a change agent, right? Once the change is done, the mundane work, I can't spend it on you guys that outsources.

Steve Swan [00:12:07]:
Yeah, yeah, somebody else does that.

Ganesh Iyer [00:12:09]:
Somebody else does that because, I mean, you want to do newer stuff because we are innovators, right? As I firmly believe here in this country, we are leaders. We need to lead. And once we lead and we give them a path, they have to walk the path, right? And I think that to a great extent has worked very well at Deloitte. When I started off, right. That helped us sell to a lot of clients because it gave us a good blend of on site versus offshore. Right. And then I bought that same thought to Intercept as well. Worked beautifully, right.

Ganesh Iyer [00:12:55]:
I, in fact, I helped them Save huge amounts of money. You know that on the ERP side before me, they were almost going to contract for a huge amount of money. And then we kind of rationalized on it, outsourcing a lot of all the standard configuration. Right. So similarly, at Harmony, what we do is we act as change agents. We work closely with the business because the business needs us. Once we align with the business and we agree on what the solution needs to be, that solution, the way it needs to be configured, can be outsourced. Right.

Ganesh Iyer [00:13:41]:
That way you get efficiencies. Yes. You need to manage them. Right. But if you, if you put a methodology in place, that management happens. Right. I guess. I mean, it's no rocket science.

Ganesh Iyer [00:13:54]:
Right. It's very standard operating principle. But I think that the management of the mundane work. Right. It's part of the methodology which works.

Steve Swan [00:14:07]:
You got so. You got so embedded with the business. And I think that your training at Deloitte really got you ready for that, you know?

Ganesh Iyer [00:14:14]:
Yes.

Steve Swan [00:14:15]:
It's, it's, it's. You had to. You didn't have choice.

Ganesh Iyer [00:14:19]:
I com. There was, there was a point of time prior to Deloitte. That's why I say that Deloitte, Intercept and Harmony are the three major changes for me. Right. And. And not to forget my wife, because my wife is the one who keeps me aligned. Right. Because she also comes from the same field.

Ganesh Iyer [00:14:36]:
So we talk a lot. And I learn a lot from her too. Right. Different things. And I kind of put everything into perspective. The point that I'm making here is at Deloitte, the biggest push to understand was the business. Right. If you understand the business and you understand the process within the technology, on prepackaged solution, you're basically doing your job.

Ganesh Iyer [00:15:05]:
Right. Because the business doesn't understand the technology. And if the technology guys don't understand the business.

Steve Swan [00:15:14]:
What are we doing?

Ganesh Iyer [00:15:15]:
What are we doing? Right. In fact, when you understand the business and you understand technology, you don't need to go in and configure. You need to understand the solution. Right. So if you can understand that and articulate that to the business in their language, you've done your job, you're good. Right.

Steve Swan [00:15:37]:
Now somebody else builds it. Yeah. And somebody else does the technology side. Yeah, yeah. Right.

Ganesh Iyer [00:15:41]:
Yeah. And then you work with that somebody else to build it.

Steve Swan [00:15:43]:
Right? Sure. Because you. Because, you know, technology or the process around technology.

Ganesh Iyer [00:15:47]:
Exactly. I used to have one of my examples, bosses, managers who should always tell me, ganesh, we have two hats. And he was a little bald kind of a guy. So he used to wear, used to wear that Hercule pirate hat. Right. So he would, he would always have a hat in summer and a different hat in winter. And he would, he would relate that to the two hats that we as technologists have. And he'll say, when you're talking to your configuration guys, you wear your technology hat.

Ganesh Iyer [00:16:25]:
When you're talking to the business folks, you remove this technology hat and you wear the business hat, you talk to them. That is the beauty of us versus the business guys. Right. So that has gone a long way for me to understand because I used to be over passionate about technology. I even went to the extent of saying when I was an Oracle to tell a lot of business folks that you got to think the Oracle way. And the business was like, what are you talking, why should I think Oracle way? I don't care.

Steve Swan [00:17:00]:
I didn't drink the Kool Aid like you did. Right, right.

Ganesh Iyer [00:17:04]:
And then I drank the Kool Aid. Right. Because it wouldn't have got me where I am if I had that attitude.

Steve Swan [00:17:13]:
Sure, I agree. I agree.

Ganesh Iyer [00:17:15]:
Right. So I think for a lot of people who think that they, they want to be a CIO or a CEO or a CEO, it's all about understanding the other person and giving them what they want. Because that is our job.

Steve Swan [00:17:32]:
Right? Sure. Yep.

Ganesh Iyer [00:17:34]:
Right.

Steve Swan [00:17:34]:
The solution to solve the problem.

Ganesh Iyer [00:17:36]:
Yeah, I, I don't know if I'm, if I'm sounding a little over the top or anything like that, but I very strongly believe in this. There are times that my team gets frustrated with me when I keep telling them, work with the business. Right. And then they kind of push back a little. And when they push back and I kind of reason with them, they agree with me. I tell them, don't listen to the business. Try to do what you're doing. Will we be successful? Are you going to go to the next level that you want me to promote you to? No.

Ganesh Iyer [00:18:17]:
Because you failed. Right. And if you really want to do well, you have to work with the business. And for smaller, smaller organizations like us, it is a big deal for us to do this.

Steve Swan [00:18:33]:
So now what about, what about actual technologies? I mean, are you, are you seeing anything, thinking about anything or want to talk about anything? Right. That may be out there and it doesn't have to be something you guys use. Right. It could just be something you're reading about, seeing, thinking about out there in the marketplace that is helping or could be helping us in the near future in the biotech industry.

Ganesh Iyer [00:18:59]:
So I think a few things right as I earlier pointed out it's very important to think very rationally and very simple, right? I know a lot of people are talking about AI. I think one year ago there were two terminologies that were doing the rounds, right? One was AI and one was data analytics. Today people are not talking a lot about data analytics, they're talking about AI. Right? And I think next year, this time AI may also go down because everybody thinks that, you know, it's just another terminology. Everybody doesn't need it, Right. I won't, I won't go to that extent as well. And I will also not say that every company needs AI, right? So I think it's very important to come to a mid ground and think very rationally about this, right? So I'll tell you what, how we are thinking, right? So one of the things I personally think, and I'm not an expert in AI and things like that, but based on my experience at Harmony and I'm going to use that experience, right. I think a lot of people confuse AI with analytics and automation.

Steve Swan [00:20:16]:
I agree 110% with you, right.

Ganesh Iyer [00:20:20]:
So I think it is very important for us to kind of educate the business on what AI is, what analytics is and what automation is and empower them to make that choice as to what they want. Right? And again, you want the business to think rationally, right? So for me, the three key things that we are working on, number one, analytics provide the business the visibility. Every company has been talking about transformation. I have to transform. I have to transform. Yeah, you have to transform. What after transformation, how do you know that your transformation was good or not so good? Did you really reap the benefits? The only way you will know that is through visibility. Right? So we are working on a strategy to provide visibility to the business in each of their processes.

Ganesh Iyer [00:21:33]:
What could happen as part of that are two things. One is you could retransform your processes and I'll give you an example. Or you could automate and improve efficiencies, right? And if you've done both of these and you want intelligence in your automation and your analytical data, you then figure out your use cases for AI, right? So it's very, and I don't know if I'm right, but I'm trying to approach this very simple because I'm not a big jargon guy and as I told you, my blood is still in sales.

Steve Swan [00:22:25]:
Yeah, no, I like it. So I like the approach.

Ganesh Iyer [00:22:30]:
And the first time, and I'll say this right, the first time I came up with this And I explained this to my wife. She laughed at me. She laughed at me. She said, you're such a dumb cio, man.

Steve Swan [00:22:45]:
Yeah, right.

Ganesh Iyer [00:22:47]:
I said, what's dumb about it? She said, a CIO is supposed to talk technologies. He's supposed to. To make it so savvy for the business. I said, no. I said, a CIO is somebody who makes it simple for the business in their terms, right? And what I did was I put a slide on this and went and presented it to the finance team, to the finance leadership. And I'll tell you, the first person. So controllers are not the most user friendly guys, right? They're very nice guys, but they're not people who will sugarcoat anything, right?

Steve Swan [00:23:38]:
Okay.

Ganesh Iyer [00:23:39]:
Because for them, everything is numbers. You just show them numbers, right? Bottom line, they don't care about anything else. They won't smile at you. Nothing, right? So my counterpart, the controller, he stood up and he said, ganesh, you got it, man? We don't need the AIs. AI is not the thing that we need. I need visibility. And that visibility will tell me whether I need automation and improvement in my process.

Steve Swan [00:24:11]:
What I see with a lot of the folks that talk about AI is it's more of a reactionary approach, right? So the, the, the, I don't know, the cfo, the CEO, the coo, somebody comes to them and says, hey, some of my friends just told me that they're using AI at their company and they're making money on it. We got to do that too. Well, they're probably not using it. They're probably not making money. But, you know, this, the IT folks decide, okay, we got to react to that and we got to build something, do something. We, we gotta, we gotta, we gotta make. You know, first of all, it's come from the top. So there may be a bit of FOMO going on there with the, with his buddies, his or her buddies.

Steve Swan [00:24:50]:
And then the IT folks are stuck in a spot where they don't even know, like you said, what they're driving towards. What's our use case? How are we measuring this thing? You know, we just gotta build it, right?

Ganesh Iyer [00:25:01]:
Steve is. We have a very good board as well, who thinks very rationally, right? And maybe it's Harmony's luck, right? Whether it be the cfo, the CEO, the board, right? I've had my discussions with each of them. They've come and said, you know, do the evaluation. Ganesh, you're right. We should not do AI just because every other company is doing it. Let's Understand whether we even need AI because. And we, and we are going to that step and I'll tell you exactly what we're trying to do. We are even trying to understand if I need Gen AI or will I be fine with some of the applications that give me standard out of the box AI.

Ganesh Iyer [00:25:52]:
Because case in point here we have Coupa for our procurement. Coupa just sent out a notification to all customers saying that they're going to be creating AI functionality within their application. Right now you could use that. Right now we don't know whether they need that or whether they need Genai. We don't know. So our strategy has been we are going to first and foremost from a data security standpoint because anybody can go on the web and they can get on AI and all that and data can go out, data can come in and all that. We are going to secure ourselves by a AI use policy that everybody signs. Then we are going to have a workshop with an external company coming in who's done this for other smaller pharma companies come first.

Ganesh Iyer [00:26:58]:
Educate our business leaders on AI, automation and analytics, tell them what the difference of each of these are, then try to help them understand what other companies are doing. What are the different types of AI? What is AI in general? What is analytics in general? How can you do it? Right. Because a lot of people, their understanding about AI is very different.

Steve Swan [00:27:33]:
It is.

Ganesh Iyer [00:27:34]:
Right. So what could constitute AI are things that the business needs to know. And what are all the challenges? I mean going into AI is very easy, but what is the challenge?

Steve Swan [00:27:48]:
Right. Well, 75, 75% of these projects fail. A lot of it has to do with your data's got to be impeccable and you got to know exactly what you're dialing that AI in to solve for. If you don't know exactly what you're solving for and your data can't get you there.

Ganesh Iyer [00:28:04]:
Exactly.

Steve Swan [00:28:05]:
You can build whatever you want. That that motor is not going to run without good data.

Ganesh Iyer [00:28:08]:
Exactly. Still all this we need to educate the business and make them aware of. And then what we do is we give them two weeks, they go back, we're going to give them a little homework and they come back after two weeks. And then we collectively understand what their need is to frame the whole strategy along with them. Right. So I don't know if I'm going to be successful doing that. Right. But I think that's the most, how do I say, logical way of approaching this?

Steve Swan [00:28:47]:
Logical or pragmatic? Yeah, same thing. Right. So yeah, I agree with you, I think it's great. I like it based on everything I've heard. That's one of the best I've heard, if not the best. Right, so.

Ganesh Iyer [00:28:56]:
Right. So. And, and I'm pretty. How do I say? I'm pretty proud? Because this is something that I thought organically within myself.

Steve Swan [00:29:07]:
I didn't realize you took the Ganesh approach to everything. Yeah, right. And you adopted what, you know, what the technology should be, could be, and maybe to. Let's figure out whether this is going to work for everybody, you know.

Ganesh Iyer [00:29:21]:
Correct, Correct. And hopefully it works.

Steve Swan [00:29:27]:
Yeah. And if it doesn't, you're back at the drawing board. But you didn't. You didn't lose a lot. You know, everybody, everybody got more educated, and everybody now under. At least understands the baseline of the difference between the terms and what we're. What we're thinking about, which is correct.

Ganesh Iyer [00:29:42]:
And I think what, what will also give them a good understanding is, hey, you know what? We are all in this together.

Steve Swan [00:29:49]:
Yeah.

Ganesh Iyer [00:29:50]:
Right. It is not thrusting something upon us. We are going to make it happen together, and it is here to help us.

Steve Swan [00:29:58]:
Yeah, absolutely.

Ganesh Iyer [00:30:00]:
Which is. Which is what I want them to do, rather than them going on their own, trying to do what they can do by engaging a vendor and all that. Right. Because if you see all vendors, I mean, they're being true to their philosophy of operations. Right. They want to sell.

Steve Swan [00:30:17]:
They do.

Ganesh Iyer [00:30:18]:
Right. So I've always strongly believed, and, you know, I've learned this one good thing from Scholastic out of the 99 bad things that I learned there. Right. Was the fact that this is your house, you own it. Don't blame the vendor. At the end of the day, blame yourself because it's your decision to engage that vendor to do what the vendor is as da.

Steve Swan [00:30:50]:
Well, they report to you. Right? The vendor, essentially.

Ganesh Iyer [00:30:53]:
Yeah, yeah. And the reason I say that is I have a lot of folks within the team. So, for example, I have security very closely embedded in this whole discussion. Right. I have my technology guy who's going to be another business for me. Because you could have AI on teams, you could have AI on emails. Right. You can do a lot of all those things.

Ganesh Iyer [00:31:20]:
And there are standard use cases for all that, which is what we want to pilot. We want to pilot and we want to showcase to people. Right. So from that perspective, it is very important for me to make them align to my thought that, hey, again, you guys are going to own each of your areas. Don't allow the vendor to own it because the vendor is Going to. He's going to try his best to do what he does, but he doesn't know our house. You guys know our house, right? So it's important for you to kind of guide him through it. He knows the solution, right? But unless and until you tell him what you want within the solution and how you want it, he's not going to know it.

Steve Swan [00:32:07]:
So now let's. This has all been awesome stuff, and I'm.

Ganesh Iyer [00:32:10]:
I'm.

Steve Swan [00:32:10]:
I'm actually going to make my daughter watch this, by the way, because I wanted to hear everything you're saying. So I like asking people, you know, what, what's different? And I mean, we could come up. I could come up with some things, but I want to hear you say what's different or what you need. Why would I want to work for Ganesh? Or. And, or why would I want to work at Harmony? You know, what, what makes it. Because you've been at a few places, right? Scholastic, Deloitte Intercept, you know, Harmony. So, and, and now this is your baby. You've sculpted this, right? So first you, your group, your department, what makes it different? Why would I want to be there? And then how do you think Harmony allowed you to grow and do what you do now? So I guess, in essence, what makes Harmony different and why would someone want to work there? Because a minute ago, a minute ago, a couple minutes ago, you plugged.

Steve Swan [00:32:56]:
You said, come work for me. But frame that. Tell us why. Why you and your group is different than why Harmony is different.

Ganesh Iyer [00:33:03]:
First and foremost, I think Harmony is doing very well. So there's a lot of positive energy. There's a lot of things happening at Harmony, right? Along with that, I think our board and the senior management is absolutely fantastic, right? Nice people, very smart, very intelligent with what they do. And most of all, I think what has really resonated with me and what made me the decision to come here, right, Is they're very clear and very. How do I say they are? I use this word fit for purpose a lot, right? They do not over market themselves incorrectly like a lot of companies do. They're very real. Very real in the sense that if we have something working, we've been very real about it, right? And it goes right from the philosophy of the CEO. And I can talk about the CFO who I report to, right? Very real.

Ganesh Iyer [00:34:30]:
And a person who empowers each of us, direct reports. We are empowered to make our decisions. And we are told that you have to allow your team to empower them, to make them make decisions. You only help them when they need you. A lot of companies don't do that today, right. And I'm very happy that I followed my ex cfo because I think he's an absolutely great human being. Right. If you keep that aside, he's very good with what he does, which is finance and most of all is very truthful.

Steve Swan [00:35:18]:
That's important. You gotta know where you stand. You gotta know where you stand, right.

Ganesh Iyer [00:35:24]:
And I came from a place in India which is Mumbai. Which is, which is, which is not all glittery, though. Bollywood comes from Mumbai. Mumbai doesn't talk about the, the glitterazi, right. That I call it, right. We don't show, right? So those things resonated a lot. And I think that is what a lot of people want to see in the company that they work for today. Right? So that is about Harmony, about my team.

Ganesh Iyer [00:35:55]:
I think we are cool, right? We want to do good technologies, but we don't want to do it because we want to do it. We want to do it if that is a purpose to do it.

Steve Swan [00:36:11]:
You're not doing technology for technology's sake.

Ganesh Iyer [00:36:14]:
We're doing it for a real business sake. Right? That we can solve a problem. Right. We're all accountable for what we do, but what we pride ourselves is the fact that being a very small team, we are, we are called the dynamite of Harmony. Every year over the past three years, Steve, we've completed 26 different transformation, right? Whether it be technology, whether it be security, whether it be applications, right? We've moved completely into the cloud. We are 100% cloud company. We don't have a single server in our premises, really. It's all I need, a single server.

Ganesh Iyer [00:37:07]:
We are 100% cloud.

Steve Swan [00:37:09]:
Nice.

Ganesh Iyer [00:37:10]:
Right? So given all that, there's so much of excitement, right? Because a lot of folks want to work at the cloud. They want to understand what are the challenges of cloud. Security in the cloud is an absolutely different beast, right. Because I don't control, but I'm still responsible. And how do you do that? Right. So I'm very proud of my small little team, right. We do a lot of work and each of them is very passionate about how they do. And now learning with me for the past three years, the fact that you can be passionate, but the business comes above passion, right.

Ganesh Iyer [00:37:56]:
Is a different outlook for them too. And they've adjusted to that beautifully.

Steve Swan [00:38:01]:
Well, they also get their, they also get their latitude, right. To get to the edge of their knowledge base and go beyond their knowledge base, it sounds like to me. Right, right. You're gonna. You'll be there to help them if it goes bad, but they gotta push their own boundaries, which is. Which is what keeps somebody interested, right?

Ganesh Iyer [00:38:19]:
Yeah. And in technology, right. You see a lot of technology folks being in consulting. There's a reason why they're in consulting because they want to learn all the new stuff. So what we do at Harmony is we give people that rope work. Like a consultant. Tell me what you can do. New.

Ganesh Iyer [00:38:43]:
Come and show me. Prove to me that this is going to be value for the organization. Don't worry about the money. That is my job. You show me the value and show me the inclination that you will succeed. Right. Have that fire in you. We will make it happen.

Ganesh Iyer [00:39:03]:
Don't worry about the rest. Leave the rest to me.

Steve Swan [00:39:07]:
And it sounds like the company's growing well, and it's. That philosophy is coming from the top.

Ganesh Iyer [00:39:11]:
So, yeah, it comes from the top. And that's why I said the leaders are great. You feel very happy to work for a company that has those kind of leaders. That's why, for me, Harmony is a great place to work.

Steve Swan [00:39:27]:
That's awesome.

Ganesh Iyer [00:39:28]:
That's everybody. I've not come across a single person who's. Who's there to malign you. Who's there to pull you down, Right? Yeah. We all, as human beings, we have our insecurities and things like that, right? But there's nobody who comes and says, oh, you know what? No, no, no, you're doing something. I don't want you to succeed. I want to pull you down.

Steve Swan [00:39:55]:
And. And I don't know, you know, I've heard about those stories at big companies, right? Some big companies, there are some of those folks floating around. Yeah. So it's a culture.

Ganesh Iyer [00:40:05]:
It's a culture that comes right from top. And I think. Yeah, I think we have an absolutely great culture at Harmony.

Steve Swan [00:40:10]:
Great.

Ganesh Iyer [00:40:12]:
That's why I drive 65 miles one way. I go for almost four days a week, though. I'm not supposed to go for four days. Nobody wants me there. Right. But I make it a point to go there because I am so charged up. And I can say that after three years. I'll say the same thing after five years, right? Beautiful place to work with no cat.

Ganesh Iyer [00:40:42]:
And I think everybody gets their chance to shine, and that's what people want at the end of the day, you want them. With everything that's happened with COVID and things like that, right. A lot of folks have gone through a lot of shit in their life, right. Of my French here.

Steve Swan [00:41:00]:
They want to learn something. They want to get accolades for it.

Ganesh Iyer [00:41:03]:
Correct.

Steve Swan [00:41:03]:
They want recognition. They want interaction. Like you just said, Covid, they didn't have that.

Ganesh Iyer [00:41:07]:
You know, and we give them all that. We give them all that. I mean, anybody can come in. If I am not in a meeting in my office, I'm just sitting around and being on my computer, and there's no meeting room, and they need a meeting room. I always move out. They can use my office. I mean, that is the kind of proximity even the CEO allows you.

Steve Swan [00:41:32]:
That's great.

Ganesh Iyer [00:41:33]:
Right? So all of the guys are great. So for me, all these things make it a great place to work at.

Steve Swan [00:41:42]:
Yeah. Well, it sounds like a great team. Yeah, sounds good. Great. Great organization. Yeah. I always have one final question I ask the folks. But before I do that, I'll ask you if you have anything more that you want to add before I ask my final question.

Steve Swan [00:41:56]:
It's the same question I ask everybody. No, I think.

Ganesh Iyer [00:41:59]:
I think I said everything. I'm very happy to be that. I am. I'm very proud. I think it's very important to be humble at the end of the day. Never thought that I will be here at any point in my life, but I'm very happy. I love what I do. I absolutely love what I do.

Ganesh Iyer [00:42:20]:
And you know it. You've been. You've known me for such a long time now.

Steve Swan [00:42:24]:
I have, yes. And I knew you'd get here.

Ganesh Iyer [00:42:27]:
Well, thank you. But I think. I think I love what I do. And I'm very grateful. It's very important to be grateful in life. I'm grateful for everything. My family. I always tell people.

Ganesh Iyer [00:42:40]:
And I'll leave you with this, right. I always tell people I'm sandwiched in my life. I'm sandwiched by great parents, great sisters, great wife, and great kids. Right? What? Can anybody ask for more? Right? So that's where I am. And it's very important to keep everything simple. So I keep all those things simple.

Steve Swan [00:43:12]:
Keep it simple. Keep it in perspective.

Ganesh Iyer [00:43:14]:
Keep it simple. I'm the guy next door, wouldn't believe that just because I'm a cio. I tell my team that, and my team knows that. They come to me, they'll say, hey, boss, I feel like having. What is that? PF Changs today. Let's go.

Steve Swan [00:43:31]:
Right?

Ganesh Iyer [00:43:33]:
And we go.

Steve Swan [00:43:34]:
Right.

Ganesh Iyer [00:43:36]:
We go to Starbucks in the afternoon.

Steve Swan [00:43:39]:
Sure.

Ganesh Iyer [00:43:39]:
We buy Starbucks for the entire finance team and the IT team working. Yeah. And it's these small things that you relate to people.

Steve Swan [00:43:50]:
It is. It is. It always is.

Ganesh Iyer [00:43:52]:
Right. So what happens is when I want something to be tested, I can go and ask, request the finance team, and they jump on it.

Steve Swan [00:44:00]:
Sure, yeah.

Ganesh Iyer [00:44:01]:
It's small little relationships, you. That you cultivate, that you create. Right. With people. It's worked very well. It rubs on my team. My team does that with the business. Now.

Ganesh Iyer [00:44:17]:
Don't worry about the money.

Steve Swan [00:44:19]:
Right. At some point, you do, but we'll worry about that later.

Ganesh Iyer [00:44:22]:
These small things. These small things. Right.

Steve Swan [00:44:25]:
Yeah. So here's my last final question, and I don't think I ever mentioned this to you, so I ask this of every guest, and if you have no answer, that's totally fine. So I'm a. I'm a music guy. I go and see a lot of concerts. I like live music. So I like asking my guests if they've ever seen a concert, a live concert, and if so, if they. If there is one in particular at any point in their life that they can say to themselves, this is the.

Steve Swan [00:44:50]:
This is the live music that I. You know, I've seen this person or this act live, and it's the best I've ever seen. And that's. That's. That was the pinnacle of live performances that I've ever seen. Is there one that sticks out to you?

Ganesh Iyer [00:45:03]:
So as a musician, of course, my guru that I call is always a Bollywood singer. Right. Because I used to sing professionally.

Steve Swan [00:45:21]:
Did you?

Ganesh Iyer [00:45:22]:
I used to.

Steve Swan [00:45:22]:
Don't do it now, but I'll trust you.

Ganesh Iyer [00:45:25]:
I won't, but I used to. And he's one guy that I've always followed, but other than that, I have not. But I hope to do that one day is. I want to watch Kenny G. Oh, yeah.

Steve Swan [00:45:41]:
Okay.

Ganesh Iyer [00:45:42]:
I am a huge, huge, huge Kenny G fan.

Steve Swan [00:45:46]:
Really?

Ganesh Iyer [00:45:47]:
A lot of people may not. May be surprised with me saying that.

Steve Swan [00:45:52]:
To each his own. To each his own.

Ganesh Iyer [00:45:53]:
I'm a huge Kennedy fan. So one day I think I absolutely want to go and watch him. The last time that he came here to Madison Square Gardens, I could not go. I could not go for the show because I had some compelling reason here. But didn't he do, like.

Steve Swan [00:46:17]:
Did he ever do, like a. You know, maybe it wasn't him. A Vegas residency. Maybe that was someone else I'm thinking of. Probably.

Ganesh Iyer [00:46:24]:
Yeah, no, he didn't do that. He didn't do that. So one was Kenny G, and the other. Other person that I always wanted to watch was Bruce Springsteen. And there you go. And by the way, I've never told you this. One of the reasons I settled in New Jersey was because of Bruce Springsteen.

Steve Swan [00:46:41]:
Seriously. Wow. That's funny to.

Ganesh Iyer [00:46:45]:
When I was in college, I used to wear the bandana and all that. I was pretty much a Bruce Spinstein guy. Rock and roll. Rock and roll.

Steve Swan [00:46:53]:
That's funny.

Ganesh Iyer [00:46:54]:
And the Born in the USA song was, like, the craziest thing.

Steve Swan [00:46:59]:
I think he toured on that album for, like, three years, you know.

Ganesh Iyer [00:47:02]:
Yeah, yeah.

Steve Swan [00:47:03]:
Like that.

Ganesh Iyer [00:47:03]:
I used in.

Steve Swan [00:47:06]:
In.

Ganesh Iyer [00:47:06]:
In Mumbai growing up, I used to have a huge music system.

Steve Swan [00:47:10]:
Okay.

Ganesh Iyer [00:47:11]:
Right. I used to blast this like crazy that my neighbors at. At some point of time used to get so, so annoyed with me. But they all knew who Bruce Spinstein was, because I did.

Steve Swan [00:47:21]:
Yeah, you. You made sure they did.

Ganesh Iyer [00:47:23]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:47:24]:
Now, do you ever go down to. You ever been down to Asbury Park, Stone Pony, things like that down there? That's where Bruce Springsteen used to play down there.

Ganesh Iyer [00:47:33]:
I used to work at Ocean Port.

Steve Swan [00:47:36]:
Oh, there you go. Okay.

Ganesh Iyer [00:47:37]:
Next to Asbury park, right off of 36. Is that 36 Astroberg there?

Steve Swan [00:47:42]:
Yeah, 36, 35, 34. I get confused by all three of them. I don't even know.

Ganesh Iyer [00:47:46]:
So I used to. I used to see that. That race course right there. So I used to work right off of that race course.

Steve Swan [00:47:56]:
Very cool. Right.

Ganesh Iyer [00:47:58]:
So I was told that he. He grew up around there, so. Yeah, I've also been to the place that. That he grew up.

Steve Swan [00:48:08]:
Stone Pony, probably. Right.

Ganesh Iyer [00:48:10]:
Yes. So I do have those pictures I should show you the next time.

Steve Swan [00:48:14]:
Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to see that sometime. Yeah. We go down there and we see concerts at the Stone Pony sometimes. And that whole area is. It used to not be a nice area, but over the last 10, 15 years, more like 10 years, it's really correct.

Ganesh Iyer [00:48:28]:
Asbury park especially, was not a great area before.

Steve Swan [00:48:31]:
Now it's untouchable.

Ganesh Iyer [00:48:34]:
Yeah. And that. That's the case with any area yet in New Jersey.

Steve Swan [00:48:37]:
And I guess it is. You're right. Yeah, that's. Yeah, it's Bridgewater. It's wherever. Yeah.

Ganesh Iyer [00:48:42]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:48:42]:
You know, so. Well, listen, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much. It was great having you.

Ganesh Iyer [00:48:49]:
My pleasure.

Steve Swan [00:48:50]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Ganesh Iyer [00:48:51]:
And we'll always. You're an integral part in my. In my career as well, in my career growth, so I thank you for that. Thank you for having me. Always a pleasure talking to.