THE ACE OF SOFT SKILLS

Professor Gopalaswamy Ramesh has 30 years of international experience and is an independent consultant and Adjunct Professor at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B), SSN School of Management and Computer Applications, Chennai, and Amrita School of Business, Coimbatore. He has also taught at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore; Anna University, Chennai; Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, and XLRI Jamshedpur. His vast industry experience covers both India and abroad. He played a key role in the establishment of Oracle India Development Center and was its former Senior Director. He is the author of the National Award¿winning book Managing Global Software Projects, and has also authored Software Testing Principles and Practices and Software Maintenance. Two of these books have also been translated into Chinese. His most recent book is The ACE of Soft Skills: Attitude, Communication and Etiquette for Success. He currently offers consultancy services in the areas of project management and soft skills to several companies in India and abroad. He holds an MS in engineering management from Stanford University, California; MS in computer science from IIT Madras and BE from IISc Bangalore.

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 SN School of Management and Computer Applications, and he also consults on management and engineering, specializing in production and operations management.