Colonel K. Pradeep Bhat is a defence technology, digital transformation, and cybersecurity professional with more than four decades of experience spanning the Indian Army, IBM India, the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre, and independent consulting.

An alumnus of Sainik School Bijapur, the National Defence Academy, and the Indian Military Academy, he was commissioned into the Indian Army's Corps of Signals in June 1981. During his 26 years of military service, he gained extensive operational experience in military communications and electronic warfare, while also contributing to the development, integration, and acquisition of complex, military-grade technology systems.

His work included major software and systems-integration initiatives undertaken in collaboration with DRDO laboratories and Bharat Electronics Limited. He played a significant role in enterprise-scale defence programs such as the Integrated Electronic Warfare Programme, SAMYUKTA, and Tactical Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence systems.

Following his voluntary retirement from the Army in 2007, Col. Bhat joined IBM India, where he spent 11 years leading multidisciplinary teams responsible for designing secure and complex technology solutions for defence and government clients. His work covered secure collaboration, information management, analytics, cybersecurity, IT governance, and information-security strategy.

He subsequently served for six years as a consultant with NCIIPC, focusing on the protection of India's critical information infrastructure. His contributions included developing a methodology for identifying critical information infrastructure, helping conceptualize and roll out the National Cybersecurity Reference Framework, supporting the engineering and operationalization of the Adaptive Cyber Defence Solution, and contributing to the NCIIPC–QCI conformity-assessment framework for cybersecurity.

Col. Bhat holds a B.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru University and a Master of Engineering in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Today, as an independent consultant, he advises organizations on digital transformation, cybersecurity, governance frameworks, system design, process engineering, and cross-functional collaboration. His work is guided by a central principle: the effective harmonization of governance, business objectives, technology, and cybersecurity to build resilient and sustainable institutions.