Rao will be based out of IDC's Bengaluru office and will be reporting to Eva Au, Managing Director, IDC Asia/Pacific, according to a statement.
Prior to joining IDC, he held multiple global leadership roles during his 10-year stint at Cognizant in the analytics, data science, and visualisation domains and built intellectual property-based products.
Most recently, Rao was leading the banking and financial services delivery for the North America AI and analytics business unit.
"India is a critical and strategically important market for IDC. Today, India's growth is at an inflection point as it transitions from a services-led to a knowledge-based economy that is largely supported by third platform technologies," said Eva Au, Managing Director, IDC Asia/Pacific.
On Rao's appointment, Au said: "With his rich experience and understanding of how technology plays an integral role in context to the business outcomes, IDC India is ready to enter the next phase of our growth."
IDC India with offices in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru has a team of local technology and industry analysts, as well as consulting talent complementing IDC's Asia Pacific and international research expertise, the statement said. MBI ANSANS