Narayanan Thirumalai is the Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Cognizant India and APAC, and a member of the Board of Directors, Cognizant India. He joined Cognizant in 2018.

Narayanan has over 30 years of successful record of accomplishments in independent private practice and in-house counsel in the banking, manufacturing and information technology sectors. He is experienced in spearheading and establishing and driving multi-scenario global legal strategies, managing reputation and regulatory risks, and implementing industry best practices, thereby bringing direct impact to commercial business through effective planning and budgeting. Narayanan’s experience spans all aspects of legal expertise, including contracting, litigation, compliance, legal risk mitigation, employment, real estate, anti-corruption, M&A, legal automation, and strategic legal management. 

His legal journey from 1993 started with independent litigation practice at original and appellate sides leading to joining the banking sector as law officer at Canara Bank in 1998 and Assistant Vice President at ING Vysya Bank in 2002. In 2006 he joined TAFE Limited as Head Legal and provided strategic legal support to executive management.

Prior to joining Cognizant, Narayanan worked as General Counsel – Asia Pacific DAG & Vice President where he was responsible for supervision of Legal Affairs of all entities in the Asia-Pacific Region, driving change, nurturing and supporting L/AP Legal Counsels to handle the dynamic and changing business environment, managing compliances, risk management and bringing in operational efficiency to reduce legal costs in L/AP entities, implementation of Daimler’s Legal Corporate Polices in L/AP entities, driving innovation and digitisation in all L/AP entities.

At Cognizant, he heads the in-house India and APAC team of 60 legal professionals handling diverse global portfolios from intellectual property, commercial contracting, real estate, litigation, HR and corporate governance. Under his proactive leadership, the team has laid the foundation of industry – academia collaboration in IT sector through the partnerships with many predominant law universities along with legal pro bono programs.