Mr. Raj Nair - Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

Mr. Raj Nair

B.Tech., 1971, Metallurgical Engineering

Mr. Raj Nair is the Chairman of four companies – Avalon Consulting, AGR Knowledge Services, Ugam Solutions and Germinait Solutions. He is also the President of IMC Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

After graduating from IIT Bombay in Metallurgical Engineering in 1971, Mr. Nair completed his postgraduate diploma in Business Administration from IIM Ahmedabad and LLB (Gen) from the University of Bombay. He has won merit scholarship awards at IIM Ahmedabad.

As an entrepreneur in the knowledge space, Mr. Nair has developed and participated in developing various kinds of unique intellectual properties ranging from frameworks to business solutions for assessment, diagnosis and optimization using data science, technology and domain knowledge. He has created learning and career growth opportunities for over 2000 current employees.

Mr. Nair has 45 years of varied experience ranging from marketing of consumer durables to merchant banking, from market research to strategy consulting and from big data analytics to artificial intelligence based social media analytics. He has also served as a member on the Boards of private and public limited companies, government bodies and industry associations in India, UK and Singapore.

Mr. Nair’s companies are encouraged to pursue social causes at the individual level and they spend serious CSR money on education of the under-privileged, for disaster relief etc. Under his leadership, the companies have received global and Indian awards and recognitions from various institutions, associations and rating firms like Gartner, Forrester, Nasscom, Vault, iSpirit, etc. Mr. Nair has received the Distinguished Service Award from IIT Bombay in 2016.

Success Mantra

My belief in the power of inspired colleagues whose collective efforts lead to success & my own 10-4-1 approach to prioritization. Since I chair the Boards of 4 companies and am the President of IMC Chamber, I have 15 things on my plate at any time, of which 1 is most important and most impactful but rarely urgent. In that I get deeply involved from concept to execution. The remaining 14 have strict deadlines. 4 of them are very important; hence I get involved in conceptualization and get moderately involved in execution. But for the remaining 10 things, I get involved in conceptualization but not in execution.

Special Memories

"I have plenty of memories to share from my student days at IIT Bombay, starting with the humbling experience of waiting for the pre-admission interview with a galaxy of brilliant aspirants, who were far more accomplished than I, and the lush green forest behind H6 which has all but disappeared. I can never forget the animated pseudo intellectual discussions on subjects ranging from Nietzsche, Fabian Socialism and Buddhism about which we knew nothing, to Marylin Monroe and Helen about whom we knew a thing or two. I fondly remember most my professors including the temperamental Prof. Tendolkar who had offered a seminar topic on which he had threatened to give either zero or hundred. I just felt like applying. He told me that there was no competition as no one had applied but that the chance of getting zero were five times higher than the chance of getting 100. The reward of finally getting 100 was small compared to the joy of making the Buddha smile. In his words, we cracked the technology even before BARC could. The stay at IIT Bombay remains an endless string of memories which has resulted in great friendships that have lasted 52 years".