People often ask me for my short 200 to-300-word professional biography. Here it is: START: About Ashutosh Tiwari Ashutosh Tiwari is a co-founder of Entrepreneurs for Nepal (E4N), which is a 10,000-member strong networking group, active both online and offline. Since 2009, E4N has been putting on well-attended monthly speaker series in Kathmandu called Last Thursdays. It also advises entrepreneurs and helps them link up with investors. From 2007 to 2009, Ashutosh was the CEO of Himalmedia where his tasks were to turn around the company -- financially and operationally -- and to solve its labour union issues, which he successfully completed. Since 2010, he has been the Country Representative for WaterAid in Nepal. In 2012, he was elected to be the Chair of the Association of International NGOs in Nepal (AIN), which has 114 INGOs as members. Honoured as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2011, Ashutosh sees his career as a an appropriately hybrid one for these fast-changing times: a mix of for-profit, social entrepreneurial and non-profit experiences at decision-making levels. He spends his free time writing comedy and perfecting his 5-ball-juggle routine. END MY JOY SUTRA: Having stimulating conversations with friends & strangers; listening to music, getting enough exercise, savoring cultural experiences, taking time to read, think and and write alone, doing work that's meaningful, and making my wife smile. According to an M-B profile, I am an ENTP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENTP I was born and raised in Kathmandu, Nepal. Earlier in my career, I was a grassroots social activist in Far Western rural Nepal in the districts of Dang, Bardiya, Kailali, Kanchanpur and Banke. For a total period of two years, together with friends at Backward Society Education (BASE), a human-rights NGO, I worked on a campaign to free (up to) 200,000 bonded agricultural ethnic Tharu laborers, aka kamaiya, who were freed in July 2000. [This experience was my hands-on, visceral exposure to many of Nepal's development challenges.] I then made a transition to the field of international development (working, as I did, for World Bank's International Finance Corporation -- IFC -- in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and, earlier, with Germany's German Technical Co-Operation, GTZ in Kathmandu). Within a year of joining GTZ, my then boss allowed me to run an office called Business Service Aadhar, where I worked with two wonderful colleagues. Our job was to assist small and medium private sector companies in Nepal make/save money and generate employment. Later, after three years with IFC-Dhaka, I decided that, before I got too comfortable as an aid bureaucrat chugging along just fine on an increasingly flat learning curve, it was time to take chances, to jump into the unknown and to challenge myself to run a company of my own. [A professor advised me: When choosing between growth and comfort, choose growth, which brings it own discomfort!] [Or, to borrow words from Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book 'The Black Swan': It was time to move from the world that was Mediocristan to the one that is Extremistan. I recommend that book, BTW.] And so, with my wife's support, I made another transition. . . this time, stumbling upward, to senior management -- as the CEO of Himalmedia, which I was entrusted to turn around, Here's an article that details some of my work at Himalmedia, which I left in Dec 2009 to join WaterAid-Nepal in January 2010. http://www.anmausa.org/members/ashutosh_boss_mag_profile.pdf http://e4nepal.com/2009/09/interaction-with-jonas-lindblom-a-swedish-investor-and-ashutosh-tiwari-ceo-of-himalmedia/ On a part-time basis, I have worked/volunteered as a restaurant critic, a film critic, a teacher of MBA microeconomics, a bartender, a juggler, a debate coach, a stand-up comedian, a college/grad school admissions adviser, a career counselor, a book reviewer, an online discussion moderator and a political campaign staff. As things get more complex and uncertain in times ahead, I feel blessed to be able to draw upon/ mix and match numerous mental models of what works and what doesn't to solve problems that get the results . . . though, truth be told, I continue to learn from my share of judgment errors! That said, I can't wait to learn/do more (good and exciting things) in times ahead.