Ravi Venkatesan

Ravi Venkatesan is the former chairman of Microsoft India & Cummins India. Under Ravi’s leadership between 2004 and 2011, India became Microsoft's second-largest presence in the world as well as one of its fastest growing markets. Microsoft India was consistently rated one of the country’s most respected companies, amongst the most admired brands, and one of India’s best employers. Ravi was instrumental in creating Microsoft India’s Project Shiksha, a computer literacy program which has so far trained over 35 million school children in India. In 2011, Ravi was voted India’s Most Influential Multinational Company CEO in the annual survey conducted by The Economic Times, India’s leading business newspaper.

Prior to joining Microsoft, as the Chairman of the publicly listed Cummins India, Ravi led its transformation into the country's leading provider of power solutions and automotive engines. He helped establish the Cummins College of Engineering, India's first engineering college for women, in Pune.

Ravi is the author of a book "Conquering the Chaos: Win in India, Win Everywhere", which will be published by Harvard Business Review Press this June. He is a director on the boards of AB Volvo and Infosys Ltd. and a fellow of the Center for Higher Ambition Leadership. An advisor to several family businesses and startups, he is a member of the advisory boards of Bunge and Marico Innovation Foundation, and serves on Harvard Business School’s Global Alumni Board. He is also the founder-chairperson of Social Venture Partners India, a network of philanthropists addressing social problems through venture philanthropy. Ravi has a BS in engineering from IIT Bombay, an MS from Purdue University, and a MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar. He is a recipient of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay’s Distinguished Alumnus Award and Purdue University's Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award. Ravi is married to Sonali Kulkarni; they live in Bangalore.