Naveen Kulkarni
Global Engineering Leader I Driving Business Strategy, Innovation & Product Development | Human-Centered Design I MBA, Master of Technology
- Role
- Group Program Manager & Head - Human Centered Design Coe at Emerson
- Location
- Pune, MH, IN
- LinkedIn followers
- 500 followers
About Naveen Kulkarni
I am Global Engineering Leader with 23+ years of experience driving engineering and technology strategy, product innovation, and organizational transformation across industrial automation, process industries, and digital technology domains. Proven expertise in building high-performing teams, mentoring future leaders, and aligning technology investments with business outcomes and delivering high-revenue products. Skilled in program management across geographies, stakeholder engagement, and strategy execution, with a passion for enabling organizations to innovate, scale, and deliver measurable impact including revenue growth, operational efficiency, and IP development.I have built and led multi-disciplinary teams, driving product development & global program management, delivering 30+ new products & value engineering initiatives across engineered products, sensors, new technology platforms in IIoT/Cloud solutions, OT-IT integration, embedded systems, software solutions through stage gate governance, Agile methodologies, Generative AI tools, Design Thinking & Lean product development.A highlight of my journey has been establishing a CoE for Human-Centered Design, institutionalizing Design Thinking processes to create common product platforms and strengthen branding. More recently, I have been driving integration of Generative AI tools into design and strategy workflows – accelerating product development, enhancing portfolio planning, and enabling data-driven decision-making at scale.Beyond design, I have consistently connected innovation to business outcomes – facilitating annual leadership planning workshops for over a decade to align organizational vision with strategy execution using design thinking practises, strategy deployment tools, and now AI-powered insights.I am recognized globally for innovation, leadership, and design excellence in engineering — with awards & recognition across the USA, China & India.
Experience
Group Program Manager & Head - Human Centered Design Coe
Oct 2019 — Present · Pune, IN
Led global engineering across multiple business groups (75+ engineers), driving cross functional collaboration across firmware, electronics, software, mechanical, and UX to deliver integrated systems and SaaS-enabled monitoring platforms across oil storage, emissions (CEMS), and water/wastewater domains• Defined and executed engineering and technology roadmap aligned with business strategy, market trends, and customer needs.• Built and scaled high performing engineering organizations by driving collaborative team culture focused on continuous learning, innovation and providing hands-on coaching to emerging leaders, fostering leadership readiness, resulting in stronger succession pipelines.• Managed fiscal budgets of $4M+ Opex/Capex, optimising engineering capacity across multi-disciplinary teams, aligning resources with strategic objectives and portfolio priorities.• Influenced executive decision-making through bi-annual board-level reporting and quarterly VP reviews, aligning technology investments with business strategy, governance, and portfolio execution.• Accelerated team innovation with 11 patents filed, 4 trade secrets, 1 patent granted, & 21 invention disclosures generated in the last 3 years, enhancing Emerson’s IP portfolio.• Scaled engineering capability by building and leading a new team of 30+ engineers over the last 3 years, enabling development of radar-based level measurement products and IIoT/SaaS platforms for liquid inventory management, enhancing asset safety and delivered portfolio of cellular and cloud-based remote asset monitoring solutions, enabling digital transformation.• Established a $500K product development and validation lab (3,500 sq. ft.), enabling scalable testing of radar-based measurement systems and accelerating time-to-market for next-generation products.• Championed adoption of Generative AI tools across engineering workflows, improving software development efficiency by 15% and enabling data-driven decision-making.
Education
Centre for Computational Technologies - Pune
Post Graduate Diploma in Computation Fluid Dynamics - 2007, Gas Dynamics , Fluid-Structure Interaction
2006 — 2007
Shri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara College of Engineering and Technology (SDMCET)
Bachelor of Engineering - BE, Mechanical
1997 — 2001
SPJIMR SP Jain Institute of Management & Research
MBA in Business Management, Business Administration and Management, General
2015 — 2017
Vishwakarma Institute Of Technology
Master of Technology - MTech, Thermal Engineering
2008 — 2010
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