Ben Pring co-founded and leads Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work. He is a co-author of the best-selling and award-winning books What To Do When Machines Do Everything (2017) and Code Halos; How the Digital Lives of People, Things, and Organizations are Changing the Rules of Business (2014).
Ben sits on the advisory board of the Labor and Work Life program at Harvard Law School. In 2018, he was a Bilderberg Meeting participant.
Ben joined Cognizant in 2011 from Gartner, where he spent 15 years researching and advising on areas such as cloud computing and global sourcing. Prior to Gartner, Ben
worked for a number of consulting companies, including Coopers and Lybrand.
At Gartner, Ben was the lead analyst on all things “cloud”; he wrote the industry’s first research notes on cloud computing (in 1997!) and Salesforce.com (in 2001), and became well known for providing provocative but accurate predictions about the future of IT. In 2007, Ben won Gartner’s prestigious annual Thought Leader Award.
Ben’s expertise in helping clients see around corners, think the unthinkable and calculate the compound annual growth rate of unintended consequences has
made him an internationally recognized authority on leading-edge technology and its intersection with business and society. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The London Times, Forbes, Fortune, MIT Technology Review, The Daily Telegraph, Quartz, Inc., Axios, The Australian and The Economic Times.
Based in Boston since 2000, Ben graduated with a degree in philosophy from Manchester University in the UK, where he grew up.
Ben can be reached at Benjamin.Pring@cognizant.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/benpring/ Twitter: @BenjaminPring
In his role as a corporate Vice President, Alan Alper is responsible for all of Cognizant’s thought leadership, globally. This includes white papers, case studies, blogs, short-form content that appears in the Latest Thinking section of cognizant.com (and Digitally Cognizant app), videos, podcasts, live-streaming video webinars and specialty publications, such as Cognizanti, the company’s flagship thought leadership journal. He also oversees Cognizant Connections, Cognizant’s senior-level client e-community. Previously, Alan was the online editor of Managing Automation magazine and served as editorial director at Gomez, Inc., an internet performance monitoring/ benchmarking/advisory services firm based in Waltham, MA. Prior to this, he was news and features editor at Computerworld. He also was on the founding team at Computer Industry Daily, the information technology industry’s first online daily publication, launched by Ziff Davis under the tutelage of industry “gadfly” (now venture capitalist), Esther Dyson.
His freelance articles have appeared in Datacommunications, Datamation and Venture magazines, as well as The Improper Bostonian. Alan cut his teeth in the daily newspaper business at the Albany Times-Union and Saratogian, and served as news editor at The Wyckoff News, a weekly newspaper in Wyckoff, New Jersey. After finishing college, Alan interned for Jack Anderson, the world-renowned columnist.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in rhetoric and communications (minoring in journalism) at the State University of New York at Albany.
Alan can be reached at Alan.Alper@cognizant.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alan-alper-9669b Twitter: @AlanAlper4ever
Robert Hoyle Brown is a Vice President in Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work. Since joining Cognizant in 2014, he has specialized on the topics of robotics, automation and augmented reality and their impact on business processes. He has worked extensively with the Cognizant Digital Operations Practice as head of market strategy, and also with Cognizant’s Accelerator leadership to drive the development of its intelligent automation strategy, messaging and go-to-market outreach.
Prior to joining Cognizant, he was Managing Vice President of the Business and Applications Services team at Gartner, and as a research analyst, he was a recognized subject matter expert in BPO. He also held roles at Hewlett-Packard and G2 Research, a boutique outsourcing research firm in Silicon Valley. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley and, prior to his graduation, attended the London School of Economics as a Hansard Scholar.
Robert can be reached at Robert.H.Brown@cognizant.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/robthbrown/ Twitter: @robthbrown
Euan Davis leads Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work in EMEA. A respected speaker and thinker, Euan has guided many Fortune 500 companies into the future of work with his thought-provoking research and advisory skills.
Within Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work, he helps ensure that the unit’s original research and analysis jibes with emerging business-technology trends and dynamics in Europe, and collaborates with a wide range of leading thinkers to understand how the future of work will look.
Previously, Euan held senior analyst, advisory and leadership positions at Forrester Research, IDC and CEB.
Euan can be reached at Euan.Davis@cognizant.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/euandavis/ Twitter: @euandavis
Manish Bahl is a Cognizant Associate Vice President who leads the company’s Center for the Future of Work in Asia-Pacific. A respected speaker and thinker, Manish has guided many Fortune 500 companies into the future of their business with his thought-provoking research and advisory skills. Within Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work, he helps ensure that the unit’s original research and analysis jibes with emerging business-technology trends and dynamics in Asia-Pacific, and collaborates with a wide range of leading thinkers to understand how the future of work will take shape. He most recently served as Vice President, Country Manager with Forrester Research in India.
Manish can be reached at Manish.Bahl@cognizant.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/manishbahl Twitter: @mbahl
Mara is responsible for strategic events and communications within Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work. In this role Mara collaborates with her colleagues to help shape key research and thought leadership content. She oversees strategic partnerships with organizations including: The World Economic Forum, TED, The Nantucket Project and Thinkers50 among others. Prior to joining Cognizant, Mara was the founder of Emerge Public Relations where she provided marketing, public relations and strategic counsel to many global 1000 organizations. Mara earned her bachelor of arts in Communications with a minor in journalism from Stephen F. Austin University.
Mara can be reached at Mara.Stefan@cognizant.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/marastefan/ Twitter: @marastefan
Michael Cook is a Senior Manager in Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work in EMEA. In this role, Mike identifies the changing dynamics that will shape the business ecosystem of the future, delivering original research and analysis of work trends in Europe. Mike also collaborates with a wide range of technology thinkers and academics about what the future of work will look like as digital changes many aspects of our working lives. Mike is an established speaker with broad experience across the services market, including customer experience management, buy-side advisory, talent and workforce solutions, and cybersecurity.
Prior to joining Cognizant, Mike served as Global Research Director with HfS Research, where he worked across multiple research topics and led HfS’s buyside focused research program. Mike earned his bachelor’s degree in economics and econometrics and postgraduate qualification of international trade and development from the University of Johannesburg.
Michael can be reached at Michael.Cook@cognizant.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mike-cook-85550755/ Twitter: @MikeMarkC
Caroline Styr is a Research Analyst in Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work in Europe. In this role, she develops thought leadership to challenge perceptions of the future of work. Above all, she is dedicated to demystifying what the individual needs to succeed in the modern organization.
Prior to joining the CFoW, Caroline was part of Cognizant Consulting, working in international digital services and transformation across the retail and healthcare industries. She has a bachelor of arts (Hons.) in German from the University of Bristol, alongside which she certified in theatre and performance at Bristol Acting Academy.
Caroline can be reached at Caroline.Styr@cognizant.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/caroline-styr-3a137b103/ Twitter: @CarolineStyr
Desmond Dickerson is a Manager within Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work. Leveraging his experience in digital transformation and marketing, Desmond consults with clients on optimizing digital strategies that prioritize user experience and engagement. His research with the CFoW focuses on the human impact of decisions related to technology development and deployment. He has an MBA (data analytics) from Georgia Institute of Technology, and an undergraduate degree in marketing from Georgia State University.
Desmond can be reached at Desmond.Dickerson@cognizant.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/desmond-dickerson Twitter: @DesmondCFOW
