Mr. Rajendra S. Pawar is Chairman and Co-founder of the NIIT Group, that encompasses two businesses— NIIT Limited, the leading Global Talent Development Corporation and NIIT Technologies Limited, the software and services arm. Mr. Pawar is the current Chairman of India’s IT industry body- National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM).

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.

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, Middle East and Australia. He has personally conceptualized and driven several initiatives that have enabled NIIT Technologies to rank among the frontrunners of the IT-BPO industry—an organization with significant stakes in IT services, Managed Services and BPO.

Mr. Pawar is a member on the Prime Minister’s National Council on Skill Development; has served on the Prime Minister’s National Task Force commissioned to develop India into an IT Superpower; is an advisor to the Hunan Province of China and was a member of PIAC (Presidential International Advisory Council) of the Government of South Africa for IT. He is currently a member of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum.

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. As President of MAIT (Manufacturers Association for Information Technology) in 1990-92, Pawar integrated MAIT activities into those of other leading industry associations in India. MAIT played a significant role in shaping IT policies of Government of India, during his presidency.

Acknowledging his contribution to the IT industry in India, Mr. Pawar has been awarded the country’s prestigious civilian honour, Padma Bhushan by the President of India.

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 engineering institution, IIT Delhi; leading management institution, IIM Bangalore; country’s first global business school, the Indian School of Business; and the Scindia School. Pawar also serves on the Board of Management of world’s largest distance learning university, Indira Gandhi National Open University.

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.

Mr. Pawar studied at the Scindia School, Gwalior and graduated from the country’s prestigious engineering institution, the 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.

Mr. Pawar is an avid reader, writer and music buff.

Mr. Vijay K. Thadani is the Chief Executive Officer of NIIT Ltd, a leading Global Talent Development Corporation. As the Co-founder of NIIT Group, he has built an organization that is recognised for its visionary role in bringing the benefits of Information Technology, both as a professional skill and as a learning tool, to the masses.

Mr. Thadani led the Group’s globalization efforts since 1991, taking the NIIT flag to over 40 countries. He serves on the Board of NIIT Technologies Limited, a leading SEI-CMMi Level 5 assessed IT Solutions organisation, servicing customers in the USA, Europe, Japan, Asia Pacific, and India.

Mr. Thadani has been actively engaged with many Industry Associations. The current Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Northern Region, Mr. Thadani has also served as President of the Indian IT industry association, MAIT; chaired the Indian Government’s Committee on National Information Infrastructure and has been a member of the Strategy Council of Global Alliance for ICT and Development of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA-GAID). He served as the Chairman of the IT Committee of CII in USA, as the Chairman of CII National Committee on Education, India.

Mr. Thadani is the Co-founder of the 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. He is also as a member of the India Advisory Board of the Maastricht University, Netherlands and serves as the Chairman of the National Accreditation Board for Education and Training (NABET), which works under the aegis of the Quality Council of India. He was recently appointed as the Chairman of Board of Governors of Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Allahabad.

Mr. Thadani also serves on the India Advisory Board for Project Management Institute (PMI) and the Governing Council of All India Management Association (AIMA).

A ‘Distinguished Alumnus’ of the premier Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, Mr. Thadani was honored with the position of ‘Economic Consultant’ to Chongqing, world’s largest city in the People’s Republic of China.

P. Rajendran Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder of NIIT Ltd, is part of the core team that has developed the organisation and brought it to its present position of international standing, since its inception in 1981. He is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Today, Mr. Rajendran leads the People, Infrastructure & Technology initiatives and the School Solutions Business at NIIT. He facilitates the company’s thrust with Governments in many countries for skills development in a public private partnership mode. A people-person and a believer in leveraging Information Technology for Human Resources competitiveness, he has helped NIIT emerge as one of the most exciting places to work. Under his leadership, the Company has received many awards in recognition of its innovative HR practices, including Aon Hewitt’s Best Employers in India- 2011, ‘Best Education Company to Work with’ at Indian Education Awards 2011 and ‘India’s Best Companies to Work for 2011’.

Mr. Rajendran is actively associated with industry associations like CII, NASSCOM and FICCI. He is member of the CII National Council, Chairperson of the Task force on ICT & Skills development in CII Africa Council, member of the CII National Committee on Skills & Human Resources and Chairman of the CII Higher Education Committee.

Mr. Rajendran takes keen interest in the area of innovative deployment of ICT for human development and creation of new jobs.

G Raghavan heads NIIT’s Career Building Solutions as its Chief Executive and is responsible for the business globally. Career Building Solutions encompass NIIT’s training businesses in IT, Banking, Finance, Insurance, Management, BPO, English and Professional Skills as well as the company’s Online Learning Solutions. NIIT’s Corporate training business in India is also a part of Raghavan’s portfolio of responsibilities.

As Chief Executive of the Career Building Solutions business, Raghavan also holds additional responsibility of heading NIIT’s Human Resources Division 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 organisations such as Voltas and Madras Cements.

He was with Carrier, the air conditioning division of United Technologies Corporation of USA, for 17 years and held varying responsibilities for the company in Asia Pacific, the USA, and India where he was the President and Executive Director. Before joining NIIT, “Raghu,” as he is better known among colleagues, was with Ingram Micro as its Managing Director for India. Later, he moved to technology distribution company’s Asia Pacific operations in Singapore.

At a thought leadership level, Raghavan has been associated with South Africa as a member of its e-skills Council and with China as “Consultant” to the Government of Wuxi New District.

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, Coimbatore.

As Chief Executive, Learning Solutions for Enterprise, NIIT Ltd, Sapnesh Lalla is responsible for continuing the rapid growth and development of every area of NIIT's Learning Solutions for Enterprise business, throughout the geographies of North America, the United Kingdom and Europe.

Sapnesh has enjoyed a long and accomplished tenure while at the company. Joining in 1992, Sapnesh began his career with NIIT in the technical side of the business. Sapnesh has been a pioneer for NIIT in the US market. Rising through the ranks, Sapnesh relocated to the United States in 1996 as a Group Consultant and in 1999 was promoted to Business Manager.

Mr. Hemant Sethi is the President of NIIT’s School Learning Solutions (SLS) and HiWEL divisions. In this role, he is responsible for driving the growth of schools business, in private and chain schools, as well as Government schools in India. NIIT has deployed NGuru school solutions in around 15,000 schools across the country and trained about 9.8 million students.

Mr. Sethi also looks after the Hole-in-the-wall (HiWEL) initiative which aims to improve elementary education and life-skills of children across the world, through Minimally Invasive Education administered through computer kiosks. HiWEL facilitates computer literacy for the under-served children through unsupervised access to computer kiosks. Children learn through self-exploration and discovery.

Mr. Sethi joined NIIT in 2011. He has a vast experience spanning 25 years in areas such as profit centre management, product management, sales and marketing, and strategy and leadership building. He has worked with various MNCs and Indian corporations including DCM Ltd, Toyota Motors, Arvind Mills Ltd., Spanco Ltd. and Bharti-Airtel. His acumen, experience and understanding of diversified markets and his style of leadership, which blends empowerment with accountability, bring forth fresh ideas and change.

Mr. Sethi’s strengths lie in delivering sustained growth in revenues and profitability in dynamic markets. He has a proven track record in B2B, B2C and B2G domains, in industry verticals such as Automotive, Telecom and networking, IT and software applications. In his last assignment prior to joining NIIT, he was leading the business and P&L for the Enterprise Division (government business) of Bharti Airtel Ltd., as Vice President.

Mr. Sethi holds a B.E. (Hons) Degree in Mechanical Engineering from BITS Pilani and a Post Graduate diploma in management. He is an active participant in panel discussions related to E-Governance and ICT initiatives in various industry associations such as CII and FICCI.

heads NIIT’s strategic initiative for Skills Development in new domains, with a thrust on employability. He has over thirty years of experience in the Information Technology industry. Since his induction into NIIT in 1988, Bala has successfully led key assignments in Software Services and IT education space. Besides establishing and growing the School Learning Solutions business in his last role, his earlier assignments included spearheading NIIT’s business in Southern India. Prior to this, he worked at DCM Data systems and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation). Bala is a graduate in Applied Sciences from the College of Engineering Guindy, University of Madras. He participates actively in Industry Associations like Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Computer Society of India (CSI) to highlight the cause of the industry.

Mr. Sanjay Bahl is the President of NIIT’s Skill Building Solutions (SBS) business, a new initiative launched by the company that focuses on providing industry specific training to the unemployed youth of India, to make them employable.

As SBS expands Business Operations, Mr. Bahl will lead the roll out of NIIT’s 10-year project to set up over 1,500 “Yuva Jyoti” centres across 1,001 locations, including Tier 3 towns and villages, in India. Under his leadership, NIIT will enable youngsters from middle/low income households as well as under employed service sector workers, to get into the mainstream across leading Service sectors, initially, through targeted, relevant and extremely affordable Skill Development courses.

Mr. Bahl comes with over 25 years of experience in diverse and cross functional areas. He has been engaged with several large Organizations and world’s leading Brands like “Crompton Greaves”, “CASIO” and “Airtel” etc. At Casio India, a leading global consumer electronics giant, he headed Marketing, Sales and New Product development for India and SAARC Countries. This was followed by a decade-long stint with the Bharti Airtel Group, managing business operations, Revenue, Profitability, leading a large cross-functional team of over 1000+ people, National Rural Business Alliances and successfully handling the media, Govt. bodies, environmental issues as well as key strategic partners like Ericsson, IBM, IFFCO & several large business partners.

In his last assignment prior to joining NIIT, he was leading business and P&L for two Northern states including the Delhi metro, for one of the world’s top 10 mobile business MNCs and a leading Russian Business conglomerate – “Sistema”. As the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the organisation, he was in-charge of the company’s mobile services—including voice and high speed data.

Mr. Bahl’s strengths lie in managing start up projects, where he has shown the highest commitment and integrity, strong business and target orientation and people handling skills. Conceptually sound and analytical, Mr. Bahl has enabled several organisations to embrace a customer-focused approach in both B2C and B2B domains.

Mr. Bahl has several certifications and recognitions to his credit. He is a Certified Six Sigma champion through the IGE process, a Certified Assessor for “People Development Centre,” SHL, UK, and a CCL Singapore/USA “Creative Leadership” certificate holder for top management. He achieved a Top Gallup score of 4.5 plus as a team leader and is a Certified “COPC Standards” coordinator. His work has also been acknowledged with a Best Knowledge Leader Award.

Born on July 5, 1963, Mr. Bahl acquired his B.E.(Hons.) degree in Electrical & Electronics engineering from BITS, Pilani. He is also an MBA, with a specialisation in Marketing.

Beyond the workplace, Mr. Bahl pursues interests such as reading, playing billiards, table tennis, chess and visiting new places and coffee bars. His “key mantra” and “4 Ps” of success are......... Passion, Performance, People and Processes.