Management Team

Download Image	Rajendra S Pawar, Chairman & Co-Founder, NIIT Group & Founder, NIIT University Mr. Rajendra S. Pawar is Chairman and co-founder of the NIIT Group, that encompasses two businesses—NIIT Technologies Limited, the software and services arm and NIIT Limited, the leading Global Talent Development Corporation. Set up in 1981, NIIT pioneered the computer education market in India, creating a completely new industry segment and taking it to consolidation and maturity. Mr. Pawar has played a leadership role in nurturing NIIT and building it into a leading Global Talent Development Corporation. By pioneering NIIT’s innovative franchising model, he enabled the company to unleash a wave of entrepreneurship across the globe, providing young people with the opportunity to create viable businesses centred on IT learning. Mr. Pawar led NIIT’s foray into the software and services market, creating NIIT Technologies, a global IT Solutions organization. Assessed at SEI-CMMi Level 5, NIIT Technologies serves clients across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Mr. Pawar is a member on the Prime Minister’s National Council on Skill Development; has served on the PM’s National Taskforce commissioned to develop India into an IT Superpower; is an advisor to the Hunan province of China; was a member of PIAC (Presidential International Advisory Council) of the Government of South Africa for IT. Actively involved in India’s key Chambers of Commerce, Mr. Pawar has led several ICT industry initiatives, giving voice to the sector’s aspirations and goals. He has been a Founder Member of NASSCOM (the National Association of Software & Service Companies). He is currently a member of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum. Global Business Intelligence firm, Ernst & Young conferred on Mr. Pawar its prestigious Master Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 1999. He has also been named the IT man of the Year by IT industry journal, Dataquest. Pawar has been awarded ‘The Global India Splendor Award’ on the occasion of 60th year of India’s independence, for his work on developing human resource potential. He is a Fellow of the Computer Society of India and the Institution of Electronics & Telecom Engineers. Known for promoting industry-academia alliances, Mr. Pawar has been working closely with the country’s well-known educational institutions. He is on the Board of Governors of India’s premier institutions- IIT Delhi, country’s first global business school, the Indian School of Business, ISB Hyderabad, IIM Bangalore and the Scindia School. Mr. Pawar studied at the Scindia School, Gwalior and graduated from the country’s prestigious engineering institution, IIT, Delhi in 1972 where he pursued the B. Tech programme in electrical engineering and received the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT in 1995. He has also been awarded an Honorary Doctoral Degree by the Rajiv Gandhi Technical University in 2005. Having revolutionized the IT Training industry, Mr. Pawar is involved in establishing an innovative model in Higher Education. Currently a member of the Planning Commission’s Consultative Group on Higher Education, he is deeply engaged in shaping the not-for-profit NIIT University. This University has been set up with a vision of being the leading centre of innovation and learning in emerging areas of the Knowledge Society.
Download Image	Vijay K Thadani, Chief Executive Officer, NIIT Limited & Founder, NIIT University Mr. Vijay K. Thadani is the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of NIIT Ltd, India, a leading Global Talent Development Corporation. His vision and leadership has led NIIT in taking IT education out of the confines of a few exclusive universities and bringing it to the masses. Mr. Thadani’s guidance led NIIT’s China operations to expand in over 170 locations, across 25 provinces. He was honoured as ‘Economic Consultant’ to Chongqing, world’s largest city located in the People’s Republic of China. Mr. Thadani is actively engaged with many Industry Associations. He is the current Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII’s) National Committee on Education, Vice Chairman, CII Northern Region and Chairman of The National Accreditation Board for Education and Training, under the aegis of Quality Council of India. In the past, he has been the President of the Indian IT industry association (MAIT), and chaired Indian Government’s Committee on National Information Infrastructure Policy. He serves on the Board of CompTIA, NIIT Technologies Limited and on the Advisory Board of the Maastricht University, Netherlands for India. Mr. Thadani, along with Mr. Rajendra S Pawar, Chairman, NIIT, is the Founder of not-for-profit, NIIT University established in 2009 with a vision of being the leading centre of innovation and learning in emerging areas of the Knowledge Society. A ‘Distinguished Alumnus’ of the premier IIT Delhi, Mr. Thadani has lectured at prestigious institutions like University of Michigan Business School, J L Kellogg Graduate School of Management and Indian Institutes of Management.
Download Image	P. Rajendran, Director & Chief Operating Officer, NIIT Parappil Rajendran, Director & Chief Operating Officer of NIIT joined the company at the time of its inception in 1982 and has been a part of the core team which has developed the organization and brought it to its present position of international standing. NIIT, an Indian-born multinational company, is known for many innovations in IT education. Offering Learning and Knowledge Solutions to companies, individuals, and institutions, NIIT is touching over 5 million learners in 40 countries across the globe. Mr. Rajendran an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, led NIIT’s computer & computer assisted education in the schools segment, which now touches 7.8 million children from over 9,500 government and private schools. A people’s-person and a believer in leveraging Information Technology for HR competitiveness, he has helped NIIT emerge as one of the most preferred employers in the Indian IT Industry. The company received the 1998 National HRD Award for the best HR practices, the World HRD Congress 2000 Award for Innovative HR practices and the Delhi Management Association – Watson Wyatt Award 2004 for Excellence in Innovative HR Practice. Mr. Rajendran has also been actively associated with Indian industry associations like Confederation of Indian Industry, Manufacturers’ Association of Information Technology, NASSCOM and professional bodies like Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, USA. He takes keen interest in the area of deployment of ICT for human development and creation of jobs in the future.

Download Image	G Raghavan, leads NIIT’s Individual Learning Business as President. It is his responsibility to grow the education business, globally. Raghavan joined NIIT in 2005, after a career spanning 25 years in sales, marketing, product management, e-business and general management in both Global Companies like Carrier Corporation and Ingram Micro and India based Companies like Voltas and Madras Cements. He was with Carrier, the air conditioning division of United Technologies Corporation of USA, for 17 years and has held varying responsibilities for them in Asia Pacific, the USA, and India where he was the President & Executive Director of the company. Before joining NIIT, “Raghu”, as he is known, was with Ingram Micro as its Managing Director for India, before moving to the technology distribution company’s Asia Pacific operations in Singapore. As a part of his role in NIIT, Raghu serves on the e-skills Council of South Africa and has also had the privilege of being appointed as “Chief Consultant” for the Government of Wuxi, China. Raghavan holds a Post-Graduate qualification in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and has a bachelor’s degree from the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in Coimbatore.
Download Image	Dr. Smarajit Dey is President – Strategic Initiatives, and responsible for NIIT’s new businesses. In this capacity, he oversees the operations of the Institute for Finance, Banking and Insurance (IFBI – NIIT’s new entity with equity participation by ICICI bank), and NIIT Imperia, NIIT’s Executive Management Education venture. Earlier, Dr. Dey has led NIIT’s Individual Learning Business, set-up NIIT Online Learning Ltd., headed Corporate Development & Quality, and managed NIIT’s Software and Learning initiatives in East India & Bangladesh. Born in 1957, Dr Dey holds a Doctorate in Information Systems from BITS Pilani. Dr. Dey was on the faculty of BITS Pilani before joining NIIT, where he was closely associated with its Industry-Collaborative Education programs. Dr Dey also serves on the Executive Board of the Association of Indian Management Schools.
Download Image	L. Balasubramanian a graduate in Applied Sciences from the Faculty of Engineering, College of Engineering Guindy, University of Madras, is the President of NIIT’s school learning solutions. Mr. Balasubramanian has over 30 years of experience across IT industry segments. He works closely with governments and private institutions to empower over two million young minds, using technology, across 7000 schools in India. Since his induction into NIIT in 1988, Mr. Balasubramanian has successfully led key assignments in the Software and Education space, including the company’s India-South Geography initiative. He also carries experience from his stint at DCM Data systems and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization).