JP Rangaswami - Agenda Setters 2008

Name: JP Rangaswami

Title: Blogger and BT Design MD

Position: 11    Last year: 48

Why? An entrepreneurial and visionary CIO

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• Warren East
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• Sverre Jarp

Previously the CIO of an investment bank, JP Rangaswami is now MD of innovation and strategy at BT Design, the telco's group IT design and delivery unit, which works with BT Operate to bring software products to customers over BT's 21CN next-generation network.

But it's the work outside of his day job which propelled this maverick up the Agenda Setters rankings - from 48 last year to 11 this year.

He is an outspoken advocate of open source and emerging web 2.0 technologies on his Confused of Calcutta blog - as well as an investor in start-ups and a sought-after authority on the international tech industry.

One Agenda Setters judge said of Rangaswami: "[He is] that rare phenomenon, the entrepreneurial CIO who is breaking the mould by simultaneously innovating the mega and the small enterprise in the commercial space while provoking the wider world through his blog."

Watch out for his agenda setting in the educational realm too - he has said he may one day set up a school from scratch.