Hardik Bhatt

Chief Executive Officer SDI Presence

Last Reviewed: September 29, 2026

Executive Summary

Hardik Bhatt is chief executive of SDI Presence, a Chicago IT consultancy and managed services provider whose clients include airports, utilities, commercial real estate portfolios and government agencies. His career has moved between both sides of public sector technology. He was chief information officer of the City of Chicago and later of the State of Illinois. In between and afterwards he sold technology to governments, first as a Cisco smart cities executive and then at Amazon Web Services. He joined SDI as President and Chief Growth Officer and became CEO in March 2023, taking over from co-founder David A. Gupta, who became Executive Chairman. The firm is privately held with investment from Abry Partners.

Career Highlights

• Chief Executive Officer of SDI Presence since March 2023, having joined the firm as President and Chief Growth Officer.
• Chief Information Officer and Secretary of the Department of Innovation and Technology for the State of Illinois, 2015-2017, where he consolidated an IT organisation of about 1,700 staff and more than $1 billion in technology budget.
• Chief Information Officer and Commissioner of Innovation and Technology for the City of Chicago, 2006-2010, where he built the Smart Chicago program.
• Senior Director at Cisco, leading global business development for smart cities and the Internet of Everything across 19 countries.
• Led public sector startup business at Amazon Web Services and built its Digital Government and Transportation verticals.
• Board director and cybersecurity committee chair at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and board member of the Illinois Economic Development Corporation, World Business Chicago and Chicago Innovation.

Professional Journey

Bhatt trained as a computer science engineer in India. His early career included roles with Tata Consultancy Services in India and with Oracle Corporation. He moved to the United States in 1998 and earned an MBA at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

In 2006 he became chief information officer of the City of Chicago and Commissioner of its Department of Innovation and Technology, a post he held until 2010. He built the Smart Chicago program there. In a company interview he said reaching that job within eight years of arriving in the country was “only possible in the US.” He then joined Cisco as a Senior Director, leading global business development for the company’s smart cities and Internet of Everything business with customers in 19 countries.

In 2015 he returned to government as the Illinois State CIO and Secretary Designate of the newly formed Department of Innovation and Technology in Governor Bruce Rauner’s cabinet. The job centralised the state’s technology organisation, roughly 1,700 IT employees and more than $1 billion in budget. SDI says Illinois moved during his tenure from fourth from the bottom to third in national state technology rankings. After that post he joined Amazon Web Services, where he worked on the State and Local Government leadership team, built the Digital Government and Transportation verticals, and led AWS’s public sector startup business, launching accelerators and incubators.

He joined SDI Presence as President and Chief Growth Officer. SDI was founded in Chicago in 1996 by David A. Gupta as System Development Integration and renamed SDI Presence in 2016. It took a minority investment from Abry Partners in 2021 and acquired Scientia Consulting Group later that year. In March 2023 the company named Bhatt chief executive, and Gupta moved into a newly created Executive Chairman role. His public sector background suits the firm’s client base of airports, utilities and government agencies, and SDI is a minority-certified supplier under the National Minority Supplier Development Council.

Outside SDI, he sits on the board of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, where he chairs the cybersecurity committee, and on the boards of World Business Chicago, Chicago Innovation and the Illinois Economic Development Corporation. He is a member of Hyde Park Angels, the Economic Club of Chicago and the Commercial Club of Chicago.

Education

Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management

MBA

He also holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering (computer science) from an institution in India that his published biographies do not name.