Indian businessman Vineet Nayar is an author and philanthropist, and is best known as the former CEO of HCL Technologies and the Sampark Foundation.

Born and raised in the foothills of the Himalayas, Nayar later gained a masters in Business Management from the XLRI- Xavier School of Management. He founded his first company in 1993, Comnet, which expanded to a net worth of over $1 billion in the technology management sector. HCL Technologies then appointed him as President and later CEO of the company and was responsible for multiplying the size of the company by six times. With Nayar at the helm, the business won numerous awards including Best Employer in Asia and Most Democratic Workplace in the World. In 2012, he was personally awarded a spot in Fortune Magazine’s Executive Dream Team.

Nayar is not just a savvy businessman, but also an advocate for social change. In 2005, he founded The Sampark Foundation with his wife, which has seen over 7 million children’s lives changed by innovative primary education initiatives. He was named as one of Forbes Magazines 48 Heroes of Philanthropy in 2016 and was presented with a Beacon of Hope award by the 2009 Asha for education. The thinker and leader has also released a book, called Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down which has garnered attention around the world as a handbook for business management. He continues to write his own blog and is a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review.