Kumar Mahadeva

Wijeyaraj Kumar Mahadeva is the Sri Lankan American founder, and original chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), of Cognizant Technology Solutions. He was the CEO of Cognizant from 1994 to 2003 and was succeeded by Lakshmi Narayanan. Kumar held senior positions at the BBC, McKinsey, AT&T, and Dun & Bradstreet. He is a member of the Sri Lankan Tamil Ponnambalam-Coomaraswamy family, the son of Deshamanya Baku Mahadeva, an eminent Sri Lankan civil servant who served as chairman of various banks, companies, commissions, and boards.