Innovation is an instinct for Venu. It's about understanding customers' aspirations – both internal and external – not just their current problems. And defining their aspirations is the most important thing for him when it comes to managing Kilby Labs, India, one of TI's four high-risk innovation centers around the globe that focus solely on delivering breakthrough technology.

Venu draws from his experience on both the product-development and technology-innovation sides of the coin to define research problems. He says defining problems correctly is just as important as actually doing the research, and that looking at research from a product-development perspective ultimately makes the research more valuable.

Venu views solving these problems as comparable to a conductor weaving together all the instruments in a symphony orchestra: He loves projects that use multiple disciplines to solve a useful problem.

Venu joined TI in 1990 and has been in the Bangalore-based Kilby Labs, India for the past two years focusing on analog and microcontroller projects. He appreciates working at a company where everyone is considered to be an innovator in some shape or form, and he fosters this spirit of innovation in the labs. He leads a team of creative minds who are tackling some of the biggest challenges facing the future of electronics.

Venu believes that innovation at TI is creating new markets and disrupting existing markets. It's his passion to decipher which products will not only disrupt but also bring value to the company and to the industry as a whole.