Ravi Venkatesan

Ravi Venkatesan is the former Chairman of Microsoft India and currently a Venture Partner at Unitus Seed Fund which invests in early stage social enterprises. He is founder and Chairman of Social Venture Partners India, a network of engaged leaders attempting to address complex social issues through venture philanthropy. A director on the boards of AB Volvo and Infosys Ltd., Ravi is the author of a newly released and critically acclaimed book, ‘Conquering the Chaos: Win in India, Win Everywhere’ (Harvard Business Review, 2013); it examines the challenges of investing in India and emerging markets.

As Chairman of Microsoft India between 2004 and 2011, Ravi helped build India into 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.

In 2014 Ravi joined the Board of Rockefeller Foundation. He is a recipient of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay’s Distinguished Alumnus Award and Purdue University’s Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award. He was recently voted as one of India’s best management thinkers by Thinkers50.