Born into a family of manufacturers, Bharat Kapoor always had a knack for tinkering with anything he could get his hands on.

“Ever since I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by how things work and what you could do to make them even better,” he says.

From repairing toys as a young child to building one of the first smartphones at Motorola to his work as a partner in Kearney’s Operations and Performance practice, Bharat continues to live out his passion for engineering, design, and high tech.

At Kearney, Bharat co-founded PERLab, the firm’s design innovation service. As consulting teams continued to turn to Bharat for project support, he saw the need for a concrete service that focused on cost reduction through design.

“I saw that some of our clients were living in mediocrity or even in the dungeons of design. They were just pushing out products and hoping for the best—putting lipstick on a pig so to speak,” he says. “I know at Kearney we have deep expertise in looking at design and taking out cost, so I wanted to develop that capability with others.”

With innovation and impact at the root of his work, Bharat also strives to create holistic solutions that go beyond just benefiting the bottom line, which translates to both creating new design concepts and advising on the impact of a global chip shortage.

“I want to help companies because when you look at companies, companies have people, people have families, and families have children,” he says. “So, I always ask myself, what can we do to make companies better so that they can enrich their employees? That is what I find most gratifying about my job.”

Get to know Bharat and read his story, From a small Himalayan town to unexpectedly helping engineer the first smartphone.

Kearney Tech Sketch