Nitin Rakesh, an

Indian-American Indian Americans or Indo-Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from India. The United States Census Bureau uses the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Native Americans, who have also historically been referred to ...

businessman, author, and philanthropist, is currently the Chief Executive Officer and Director of Mphasis. Prior to that, Rakesh was Syntel's CEO and President, as well as CEO and Managing Director of

Motilal Oswal Motilal Oswal is an Indian businessman. He is the founder, chairman and managing director A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is ...

Asset Management Company Ltd., and as Chief Executive of State Street Syntel Services, a joint venture between Syntel and

State Street Bank State Street Corporation is an American financial services and bank holding company headquartered at One Lincoln Street in Boston with operations worldwide. It is the list of oldest banks in continuous operation, second-oldest continually opera ...

Early life and education

Rakesh grew up in a small town on the outskirts of

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

and was active in sports and athletics. In high school, he was a Quiz master as well as an active member in student leadership. He completed his schooling from Apeejay School, Faridabad and St. Joseph's Convent, graduating in 1989. He moved to Delhi to earn his

Bachelor of Engineering A Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) or a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) is an academic undergraduate degree awarded to a student after three to five years of studying engineering at an accredited college or university. In the UK, a Bache ...

degree in Computer Science from Delhi Institute of Technology DIT (now Netaji Subhas University of Technology NSUT). Rakesh completed his Master's in Management Studies from

SVKM's NMIMS SVKM's NMIMS is a private deemed university located in Mumbai. The University also has campuses at Shirpur, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Indore and Navi Mumbai and two upcoming campuses in Dhule and Chandigarh. It has 17 constituent schools that offe ...

, Mumbai in 1995. He is an alumnus of Harvard Business School's CEO Workshop.

Career

In his early career, Rakesh worked for

Unit Trust of India UTI Mutual Fund was carved out of the erstwhile Unit Trust of India (UTI) as a Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) registered mutual fund from 1 February 2003. The Unit Trust of India Act 1963 was repealed, paving way for the bifurcat ...

, setting up offshore

mutual funds A mutual fund is a professionally managed investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. The term is typically used in the United States, Canada, and India, while similar structures across the globe include the SICAV i ...

and a secondary Market Research Cell, Product Development and Risk Management. He also worked with TCG Group, a transnational

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a ty ...

and investments firm as the Head of Banking & Financial Services Sales at TCG Software Services. From 2002 to 2008, Rakesh was employed at Syntel in various capacities. During his tenure, he founded Syntel's

Business Process Outsourcing Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and ...

practice, building it into a significant contributor to Syntel's overall revenue. He was named Vice President and Head of B&FS BPO Operations at Syntel in February 2006. He was promoted to

Chief Executive Officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of Syntel's

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

, State Street Syntel Services, where he led its India operations until 2008. In September 2008, he was named CEO and Managing Director of Motilal Oswal Asset Management Company Ltd., a financial services company that specializes in

exchange-traded fund An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a type of investment fund and exchange-traded product, i.e. they are traded on stock exchanges. ETFs are similar in many ways to mutual funds, except that ETFs are bought and sold from other owners throughout the ...

s (ETF) and separate accounts. During Rakesh's tenure, the company was named "Most Innovative ETF, Asia Pacific" at the 2011 ETF Awards in New York, and the "Most Innovative Mutual Fund, India" in 2010 at the

CRISIL CRISIL (formerly ''Credit Rating Information Services of India Limited'') is an Indian analytical company providing ratings, research, and risk and policy advisory services and is a subsidiary of American company S&P Global. CRISIL, was the f ...

- S&P Mutual Fund Awards.2010 CRISIL Mutual Fund Award Winners
CNBC-TV18-CRISIL Mutual Fund Awards. In September, 2012, he left Motilal Oswal to become President, Americas for Syntel, where he managed Business Development and Nearshoring Center for Syntel's

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

n operations. He was named CEO and President of Syntel, in April 2014. He resigned Syntel on 4 November 2016 officially.

Mphasis

Rakesh was named CEO and Executive Director Mphasis on 29 January 2017. He took over from

Ganesh Ayyar Balu Ganesh Ayyar (born 1961) is an Indian executive. He is the former CEO of Mphasis. Early life Ayyar was born in Madhya Pradesh to Professor S.A. Balu and Brinda Balu. He finished his schooling in Madhya Pradesh and went on to complete hi ...

. In the first year of taking on the mantle as the CEO of Mphasis, he introduced Mphasis’ C= X2C2 =1 TM formula for success, (hyper-personalization; drive n=1 powered by Cloud & Cognitive); driving multi-dimensions of business value with an integrated consumer-centric Front to Back Digital Transformation TM, enabling Business Operations, Technology Transformation and Service Transformation, driven by IP assets. Under Nitin's leadership, Mphasis set a record for the highest new deal wins in the history of the company, thus re-defining benchmarks and growing above industry rate. Early 2017, Rakesh was instrumental in the setting up of Mphasis Sparkles, an innovation lab, that offers startups a platform to showcase innovative solutions to large enterprises and incorporate such products into Mphasis solutions.

Works/Publications

Nitin Rakesh has authored a book “Transformation in Times of Crisis – Eight Principles for Creating Opportunities and Value in the Post-Pandemic World.” with Jerry Wind, an internationally renowned and award-winning academician and the Lauder Professor Emeritus and Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. The book was launched virtually on 3 December 2020 and outlines 8 principles businesses can use to make the most of opportunities in the midst of crisis. The book was dedicated to the COVID-19 heroes and proceeds from the sales went to Doctors with Borders and the Mphasis F1 Foundation.

Awards and recognition

* Bronze Stevie Award for “Tech Innovator of the Year” in May 2021 by the Annual American Business Awards® 2021 * Silver Stevie Award as Best Business Book - Transformation in Times of Crisis in May 2021 by the Annual American Business Awards® * International Business Book of the year 2021 - Transformation in Times of Crisis in May 2021 by the Business Book Awards. * Gold Stevie Award for Tech Innovator of the Year – Services in May 2019 by the American Business Awards & International Business Awards 2019 * Gold Stevie Award for Executive of the Year - Computer Services in May 2018 by the International Business Awards 2018, under the Management award category. *‘2018 Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business’ Award by the Asian American Business Development Center (AABDC)

Boards and Committees

*Rakesh is an active member of various institutions globally, such as: *US – India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) driving financial services council and business relations between US and India *NASSCOM as Executive Council and Chair of the IT Services Council, charted to future proof IT services industry *Knowledge@Wharton, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania's advisory board, driving digital transformation discussions at grass root level *Wall Street Journal (WSJ) CEO Council, to debate and formulate strategies to address the biggest issues facing global business and leadership *Forbes Technology Council (FTC) as an industry expert and practitioner to advise Forbes’ readers globally on current as well as future technologies and trends. *Ashoka University as a Trustee focusing on multidisciplinary liberal education. *Plaksha University as a Founder and Trustee.

Personal life

Nitin and his family live in New York. He is an avid reader and

Yuval Noah Harari Yuval Noah Harari ( he, יובל נח הררי ; born 1976) is an Israeli historian and professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of the popular science bestsellers '' Sapiens: A Brief History ...

in one of his favourite authors. His other interests also include tennis, cricket, vintage bikes, and automobiles.

References

External links

Challenges for new Mphasis CEO
BTVI
Industry has much deeper capabilities, says Nitin Rakesh, CEO, Mphasis

The Economic Times ''The Economic Times'' is an Indian English-language business-focused daily newspaper. It is owned by The Times Group. ''The Economic Times'' began publication in 1961. As of 2012, it is the world's second-most widely read English-language bus ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rakesh, Nitin Businesspeople from Delhi People from New Delhi Living people Apeejay School alumni Year of birth missing (living people)