Board of Directors

SHIV NADAR
Founder - HCL
Chairman & Chief Strategy Officer - HCL Technologies

At a time when India had a total of 250 computers, Shiv Nadar led a young team which passionately believed and bet on the growth of the IT industry. That vision in 1976, born out of a Delhi "barsaati" (akin to a garage start up), has resulted 3 decades later in creating a US $ 4.9 Billion Global Enterprise.

HCL is today a leader in the IT industry, employing 55000 professionals, has a global presence in 18 countries spanning locations in the US, Europe, Japan, ASEAN & the Pacific Rim and a pan India presence across 360 points. HCL's business today spans IT Hardware manufacturing & distribution, System Integration, Technology & Software services, Business Process Outsourcing, and Infrastructure Management.

Geoffrey James, in his book, "The Giant Killers", has placed Shiv Nadar in the same league as Bill Gates (Microsoft), Scott McNealy (SUN) and Eckhard Pfeiffer (Compaq), amongst "The Electronic Elite", who are creating the standards on which the successful enterprises of tomorrow will be run.

Armed with uncanny foresight and a global outlook, Shiv Nadar has charted a defining growth path for his company as well as the Indian IT industry, both in India and across the world. At a time when few ventured abroad and Indian IT skills were yet to be recognized, Shiv Nadar commenced operations in the US in 1988 and developed a strategy to take HCL global, something that has yielded rich dividends and led to many people calling the Group 'India's first transnational' in the IT sphere.

Acknowledged as 'a visionary' by the IT industry and his peers, Nadar has been a man ahead of his times. Anticipating the future, he has spearheaded several path-breaking industry trends and initiatives. To keep track of emerging technologies and to hone skills and talent in new areas, Nadar initiated the idea of "Technology Cradles" at the technology centers where new, high potential and cutting edge technologies are incubated and developed. HCL is thus able to not just consistently ride the technology waves, but very often masterminds and creates them itself.

Shiv Nadar's risk-taking ability is legendary and he has often made daring forays based on his conviction of the future. At a time when hardware was the name of the game, Nadar foresaw the huge potential in the area of IT education & learning from which NIIT was born; yet again when software development was still in the nascent stages, Shiv Nadar took the lead in this area and today HCL is a force to reckon with, in the global markets.

In 1987 ELCINA the body representing the electronic industry in India nominated Shiv Nadar as the Man of the Year. In December 1995, Shiv Nadar was nominated the Dataquest IT Man of the Year. The scorching pace did not go unnoticed nationally or internationally. In February 1997, TIME magazine wrote: "The world has caught up with Nadar's vision of a networked future, and the results are shaking up enterprises, economies and governments around the world". Shiv Nadar attributes the success to teamwork and the entrepreneurial spirit of HCL, which together have enabled it to handle rapid change in environments and technologies, and to transform threats into opportunities and market differentiators. Fundamental to the process has been the development of new paradigms for the unprecedented situations into which HCL ventures. Developed from first principles, these include guidelines for organization restructuring, market creation, technology leveraging and business up scaling. Shiv Nadar personally heads the think tanks, which address the conceptual bases of the company.

Recognized as one of India's most effective entrepreneurs, Shiv Nadar sees a parallel with top-level sportspersons, in terms of their sharp focus on goals and complete commitment to their achievement. For conceptualization, he draws inspiration from the performing and fine arts, where preconceived notions are questioned.

Determined to give back to the society that nurtured him, Shiv Nadar has been supporting some critical social causes in many ways. One of them is to provide "World Class Research Oriented Quality Education at Affordable Price" in India. He has been actively, though quietly, involved in translating this dream into reality. He founded the SSN College of Engineering in Chennai (www.ssnce.ac.in) in 1996. In a short span of ten years the SSNCE has come to be ranked as the best in Tamilnadu and ninth in India of all private engineering colleges. He has also founded the SSN School of Advanced Software Engineering (www.ssnsase.ac.in) which in association with the Carnegie Mellon University, USA (rated No. 1 globally in Software Engineering) offers 'Master Degree' program in 'Software Engineering' and 'Robotics'.

Shiv Nadar has been associated with the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad and is a member of the Executive Board of ISB which has association with world renowned management institutes like Kellogg, Wharton and London Business School. The School is the dream of some of the best minds from the corporate and academic world whose aspiration in creating the ISB is to establish an internationally top-ranked, research-driven, independent management institution that grooms future leaders for India and the world.

Concerned with the public health issues in India, Shiv Nadar is actively involved with the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) initiative that is the first of its kind in India, symbolizing a true public – private partnership. The objectives of the PHFI are to act as a think tank on policy issues related to health system, to establish standards in public health education and to create a network of innovative world class India–relevant institutes of public health. Besides these, he also supports initiatives in the fields of the "girl child" and "empowering women".

From modest beginning 3 decades ago, Shiv Nadar entered the Forbes List of billionaires in the year 2000. In 2007 he was ranked 214 globally and among the top fifteen in India. Business Standard ranked him 4th in the billionaires club and he is also amongst the top 20 Indian personalities as per the Business Today – Cirrus survey. During this process, he has not only created wealth for himself but also for his customers, partners, employees, and investors.

In January 2005 Shiv Nadar received the CNBC Business Excellence award from the Prime Minister of India. In February 2005 he was listed by "India Today" in the Power List of India’s leaders from all walks of life, for building a global IT Enterprise from scratch in 3 decades, creating valuable JVs with marquee partners such as Deutsche Bank, and creating jobs in Belfast when India was being criticized for just the opposite. During the UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair’s September 2005 visit to India, Shiv Nadar was recognized for his contribution for creating 2300 jobs in the UK. Recently, he was conferred the ICICI venture - CII CONNECT 2006 entrepreneur award for making a lasting impact in the ICT space in India and globally.

In June 2007, Forbes acknowledged Shiv’s entrepreneurship and did a cover story on him and his vision for HCL Technologies.

Shiv Nadar firmly believes that, "If you want to empower people, give them the tools. There's enough entrepreneurship in this country to take care of the rest." He is quick to grasp new opportunities, select a team to transform his ideas into reality and delegate the project to competent professionals.

Summing up the phenomenal growth of the company in a period spanning almost three decades, Nadar says, "In these 3 decades, we have pioneered the growth of IT in India in virtually every sphere, including hardware, software, services, solutions, networking communications, Internet and the IT infrastructure….and we never missed a heartbeat".