Srivatsa topped the Indian Civil Services Examination in 1994 and joined the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). He went on to do his MBA from Harvard Business School and an Advanced Executive Program from The Wharton School of Business. He is currently the Executive Director & CEO South Asia of a Dubai World Group Company, one of the largest infrastructure companies globally.
Before Harvard, he was part of the core team of the Government of Andhra Pradesh and was responsible for some of the key investment promotion and e-government initiatives there. He is currently co-authoring a case study as part of an ISR with Professor Michael Porter on technology clusters and economic development in India.
Commenting on his speech, Great Lakes Students say, "The talk took us into a realm of hope, dreams, despondence, optimism, helplessness, all put into one drink. It was amazing. The talk started with the current state of India - The competitive advantage, the Information Technology edge and the general scheme of things; put across in a positive light. And then came the killer – he took us through the Chinese statistics. The sheer progress that China has made in the past couple of decades has been breathtaking. He went on talking about a part of China which, once upon a time was tagged - deep ditch; now the 'barren land' houses more than three thousand and five hundred skyscrapers!"
Mr Srivatsa said that comparing India with China is plain preposterous. The culture of the two countries had a role in molding the nations as they are. The Indian culture of sustainability amidst irreversible ruckus is not in sync with their Chinese counterpart. He also spoke about the future of Infrastructure in India. According to him, staggering numbers amounting to billions of dollars were going to be spent in the next few years to build up infrastructure in India. He also said that FDI was now flowing faster than ever into the subcontinent and the future was indeed bright for India with respect to job creation, services and global exposure
The day concluded with a long question and answer session.
