Rajat Gupta has inhabited many a boardroom in his high-profile business career, including at McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, American Airlines and Procter & Gamble. But his biggest contribution remains institution building.

An Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi, and Harvard Business School alumnus, Rajat joined McKinsey in New York in 1973. He became the firm’s first foreign-born global managing director, overseeing an expansion to 23 new countries and a 280% increase in revenue.

Outside the boardroom, Rajat has been involved with philanthropic initiatives like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and serves as the chairman of Wheels Global Foundation (WGF), set up by IIT alumni to improve access and funding for technology-based solution in six critical areas: water, health, energy, education, livelihood and sustainability.

Always committed to quality education, Rajat’s vision to revolutionize management studies in India led him to establish the Indian School of Business (ISB) in 2001. Soon after, he founded the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), set up to strengthen research and capacity-building for India’s public health system.

In 2019, he published a memoir, Mind Without Fear, chronicling his rollercoaster journey in business and life.