Ravi Arora is a Vice President at Tata Sons and is responsible for the Innovation program for the Tata Group.

He has partnered with Tata companies on their innovation programs and has created a few corporate programs to support companies in building a better ecosystem for innovation. These programs include are Tata InnoMeter, Tata InnoVista, Tata InnoVerse, Tata Ideas and Challenges Worth Solving. Some of these programs have been shared in places like Harvard Business School and CEB (Corporate Executive Board). Ravi has also shared his experiences of facilitating innovation at conferences in India, the United States and Europe and has written a few articles in internal and national publications.

Before joining Tata Sons, Ravi started his career at Tata Steel in 1990 in the capacity of a maintenance engineer and then served for a few years as project manager in one of the engineering units of Tata Steel. Immediately after obtaining his Gold Medal for his scholastic performance in Business Management at XLRI, he became part of the team that conceptualized and initiated the Knowledge Management program at Tata Steel. He later led this program, which, within four years of its inception, went on to win the MAKE Asia award and was selected as one of the Best Practice organizations by APQC, USA. In this role, he created concepts like the Knowledge Management Index, Knowledge Communities, Knowledge Manthan and the Organizational Learning Index. He published a few papers in Journal of Knowledge Management, KM Review and Knowledge Management. He developed a Tata Maturity Model for Knowledge Discovery and Flow (KDF) and also assessed a few companies using this model. He has presented his experiences management schools in India and has spoken in a few global conferences on knowledge management.

Ravi earned his Bachelor of Engineering degree from the Roorkee University and studied one year Business Management at XLRI, Jamshedpur.

Ravi is a proud author of his two books:

1. ‘Making Innovations Happen’ published by Penguin Random House – 2015
2. ‘Igniting Innovation – The Tata Way’ published by Harper Collins – 2019

Other Publications

1. Making Innovations Happen: Tata Sphere, March, 2016
2. Innovation Ecosystem@Tata: CFO Insights, November, 2015 (Also at: Yes Bank Forum)
3. Innovation: A fusion of ‘People’s Process’ and a ‘Process for People:  NHRD Network Journal Special Issue, Oct 2015
4. Lessons from Tata’s Corporate Innovation Strategy: IT Pro, March/April, 2015
5. Innovation needs mavericks and Everest climbers: Tata Review, April, 2014 (Also in pdf)
6. A Valuable VISTA: Innowin, Oct-Dec, 2013
7. Dare to try – Why Tata embraces failure on the road to success: HQ Asia, Issue 3, 2012
8. Catch-up to Catch-me: Emerging habits of innovation at Tata: 35th Annual Global conference of PDMA, Arizona Biltmore, Phoenix, October 2011
9. The heart of the meter: Tata Review, March, 2010 (Also in pdf)
10. Tatas learn to innovate: Business Standard, Feb 9, 2010
11. Dare to Try: Economic times, October, 2009
12. Measuring Contribution to the Organization: Knowledge Management at Tata Steel: IIM Ahmedabad case study, September, 2004
13. Knowledge Management @Tata Steel: ICMR, 2004
14. Integrating KM to create a learning organization at Tata Steel: KM Review, Sep/Oct, 2003
15. Implementing KM – A balanced score card approach: Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 6 Iss: 3, pp.240 – 249, 2002
16. Knowledge Management Initiatives – Tata Search, 2001