Guru Banavar is a technology and innovation leader at IBM, creating and delivering products and solutions for addressing client needs in multiple industries. In his current role as CTO, Banavar drives strategic initiatives for IBM's Public Sector business globally, which consists of the Government, Education, Healthcare and Life Sciences Industries, with particular emphasis on IBM's SmarterCities initiatives, to create value for key clients and to integrate and innovate across IBM.

Banavar leads several strategic client engagements across all geographies. A key example is the City Operations Center project in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Banavar brings global best practices and solution approaches to each of these engagements, and guides the creation of new products, services, and business models to enhance IBM's offering portfolio.

Previously, Banavar was the Director of IBM Research in India, where he established India as a pre-eminent research lab in Services Research and Mobile Computing, and for creating the Bangalore branch of IBM Research. In his additional role as Chief Technologist of IBM India/South Asia, Banavar led the region's technical strategy.

Banavar has published over 40 widely cited research papers, filed over 25 patents, served on 3 PhD committees, and chaired premier conferences in computer science and service science. His awards include a National Innovation Award in 2009 by the President of India for the Spoken Web project. His work has been featured in major international newspapers such as The New York Times, The Economist magazine and the Wall Street Journal. He has served on the technical advisory boards of IBM customers as well as international research and educational organizations. He is an elected member of the IBM Academy of Technology.