Perfect Imbalance

The Key to Enabling Business-Centric IT

About the Author


Umesh Manathkar is CEO & Founder of Perfect Imbalance Advisory, a boutique IT management consulting firm. Prior to that he served as CIO of four public companies, including Fortune 500, over last 23 years.

Umesh is recognized as a transformational CIO and business-centric technology strategist with a proven track record of accelerating growth and turning around underperforming IT functions across semiconductor, high-tech, software, cloud, and manufacturing sectors. A four-time public company CIO and three-time “CIO of the Year” honoree, known for leading global teams of large size. Umesh published his leadership framework for balancing cost, value, and risk in enterprise IT in the book he authored “Perfect Imbalance”. Trusted by CEOs for delivering digital transformation, GenAI/ML adoption, cybersecurity, and smart manufacturing strategies that drive measurable business outcomes. Umesh is well-respected among peers as a transformative IT leader. He has also spoken extensively at industry conferences.

Manathkar holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, a MS in industrial engineering and an MBA in technology. Both master’s degrees are from Arizona State University.

Unlock your potential

Today’s IT departments are no longer the back-office functions they once used to be. Now Information Technology is at the center of every company’s survival and growth. The CIOs leading the IT teams need to be business leaders first and technology leaders second. Most of the decisions they make are heavy on business context and light on the technology.

Adapting to this paradigm shift requires IT managers to learn how to enhance business value in every aspect of business while continuously lowering costs and not taking undue risks. That trifecta of perfect imbalance sets successful IT organizations apart from the average ones. Backed by author Umesh Manathkar’s decades-long experience in running business-centric IT, Perfect Imbalance provides a robust framework to manage these conflicting objectives in a systematic way.

In these pages, you will discover:

  • The real role of a CIO, not listed in job descriptions

  • The current state of IT

  • The objective, subjective, and internal vs. external values of IT

  • The essential factors for delivering IT value

  • The expectations of all IT stakeholders

  • What risk management means to a CIO

  • Key cost-optimization strategies for CIOs

  • The required CIO skills for delivering a “perfect imbalance”

IT is a key enabler today. Let Umesh Manathkar, three-time CIO of the Year, teach you how to use that leverage to your advantage and for the benefit of all those you work with.

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