Vineet Nayar is Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of HCL Technologies Ltd. (HCLT), a $3.5 billion global information technology services company and author of the highly acclaimed management book “Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down” (Harvard Business Press, June 2010).
He is also an acknowledged management visionary and a radical thinker who architected the company’s “Employees First, Customers Second (EFCS)” strategy, which transformed HCL’s business, starting in 2005. This managerial approach was created to drive an inverted organizational structure, create transparency and accountability within the organization and to encourage a value-driven culture.
Vineet joined HCLT in 1985 after earning his MBA from XLRI, a leading business management school in Asia. In 1993, he founded Comnet, where he incubated the Remote Infrastructure Management (RIM) industry, which is today a multi-billion dollar IT outsourcing segment. At Comnet, Vineet also developed and implemented many ground-breaking policies and practices, which are core to the EFCS philosophy.
In 2005, Vineet became President of HCL Technologies and during the next five years, he led a remarkable turnaround whereby the company expanded its employee base from 30,000 to more than 75,000, while tripling revenues and doubling its market cap. In 2007, Vineet was designated as the company’s CEO and, subsequently, its Vice Chairman in November 2010. During that time, HCLT joined Apple, Google, Lenovo and Cognizant as one of five technology companies in the world with revenues above $2 billion to achieve compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than thirty percent. Additionally, since 2007, HCLT stock has consistently and significantly outperformed the broader index (Sensex), delivering among the best sector return at more than 34 percent in the last year and greater than 100 percent during the past three years.
Under Vineet’s leadership, HCLT has been named “Best Employer” in India and Asia by Hewitt Associates, a “Best Employer in UK” by CRF Institute, “Workforce Management Optimas Award for HR Innovation” in the U.S. and among the world’s “Most Democratic Workplaces” by WorldBlu. Vineet has emerged as a global thought leader and has been lauded by government leaders, business publications and influencers worldwide for his visionary strategy, his ability to create an entrepreneurial culture, and his warm-hearted, straight-talking approach. His book “Employees First, Customers Second” received rich praise from influencers like the late C.K. Prahalad, Tom Peters, Gary Hamel, Ram Charan and Victor Fung. BusinessWeek named HCLT as “one of the world’s most influential companies” while Fortune recognized HCL as “the world’s most modern management.” Additionally, the company’s innovative management practices have been presented as case studies at Harvard Business School and London Business School.
Today, Vineet represents HCLT at many prestigious national and international forums. He is a Governor for the ICT Industry and a member of the Global Advisory Board of Women Leader’s and Gender Parity Program at the World Economic Forum (WEF). He is also a Community Partner of the Forum of Young Global Leaders at WEF and has recently served as a ‘Mentor’ (Co-Chair) of WEF’s 2011 Annual Meeting of New Champions conference. Vineet is a member of board of governors of XLRI and has been the Founder Chairman of NASSCOM’s (National Association of Software & Service Companies) Forum on RIM. Recently Vineet was chosen by Fortune magazine in its first ever global “Executive Dream Team” which the publication described as an “all star leadership” that could lead any company through turbulent times and “could coalesce and dominate in any industry”.
Vineet has not restricted his value driven leadership to the corporate world. He established a non-profit organization called SAMPARK in 2004, which has a vision of “creating a million smiles.”SAMPARK is working with ill equipped schools in India to improve the quality of education through the “Teach the Teacher” program, investing in basic infrastructure and creating science labs in schools. SAMPARK also funds engineering education for students from these schools by providing scholarship to meritorious students, thereby increasing the opportunity for young and bright minds to pursue education in engineering. Vineet has also been honored with the “Beacon of Hope” award by the 2009 Asha for Education, NYC/NJ Chapter.
Vineet holds a graduate degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s in business administration. He spends his spare time reading management strategy and writing. He hosts two blogs, one at Harvard Business Review http://discussionleader.harvardbusiness.org/nayar, and another at http://www.vineetnayar.com