Chandra leads McKinsey’s Software Practice in North America, advancing our capacity to support software firms as they pursue growth, achieve organizational efficiency, and ensure future competitiveness. Before moving to the West Coast, Chandra was a founding partner of McKinsey’s Bangalore location and led our Business Technology Practice in India.
He advises clients on business transformations by helping them define new product-development road maps, setting effective go-to-market strategies, and shaping high-level corporate strategy. Chandra has worked across a range of high-tech sectors, with software companies, hardware producers, global systems integrators, and consumer-electronics firms.
Deeply interested in the impact of technology trends on global business practices, Chandra frequently speaks on the topic at conferences and panels in the United States and India. Before joining McKinsey, he was a Java architect and a tech-industry account director.
Video
“TiEcon 2014: Cloud infrastructure: Leading technological trends in cloud orchestration,” panel discussion about the standards and technologies emerging to address the paradigm shift in cloud infrastructure, June 25, 2014
“McKinsey & Company's Chandra Gnanasambandam on retail and the new consumer experience,” speech delivered at the TN Retail Conference of the Confederation of Indian Industry, August 11, 2012
Published work
“The product management talent dilemma,” McKinsey & Company, November 2018
“New demand, new markets: What edge computing means for hardware companies,” McKinsey & Company, November 2018
“Reimagining software services for the cloud and the digital world,” McKinsey & Company, February 2018
“Grow fast or die slow: The role of profitability in sustainable growth,” McKinsey & Company, October 2017
“Innovation Is as Much About Finding Partners as Building Products,” Harvard Business Review, July 2017
“A machine-learning approach to venture capital,” McKinsey Quarterly, June 2017
“An executive’s guide to software development,” McKinsey & Company, February 2017
“The perils of ignoring software development,” McKinsey Quarterly, February 2015
“From box to cloud: An approach for software development executives,” McKinsey & Company, January 2015 (PDF–690 KB)
“Next-generation IT infrastructure,” McKinsey & Company, April 2014
“Online and upcoming: the Internet's impact on India,” McKinsey & Company, December 2012 (PDF–2.52 MB)
Past experience
BEA Systems
Senior director of global accounts
Sun Microsystems
Java architect
Education
University of Saskatchewan
MS, engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
MS, PhD, engineering