Hari TN

Hari’s impact on the growth of the start-up ecosystem in India is impressive. The first four startups where he played a key role in shaping their growth saw successful exits - Daksh was acquired by IBM; Virtusa went public on NASDAQ; Amba Research was acquired by Moody’s; and TaxiForSure was acquired by Ola.

He is currently the Executive Chairman at STEER World, an advanced materials platform technology, a mentor at accelerators like Techstars, Silicon Road and NUMA, and an advisor to Arkam Ventures, an early-stage VC fund, and Fundamentum, which is a growth stage VC fund set up by Nandan Nilekani and Sanjeev Aggarwal.

Hari was previously at Tata Steel for 14 years. The first 11 years were spent in engineering on the shop floor, procurement, and corporate planning. The last three years were as CHRO helping restructure the company to cope with post-liberalisation challenges. He joined IBM Daksh as CHRO thereafter.

A prolific author, he has co-written seven books to date including From Pony to Unicorn – Scaling a Start-up Sustainably and Winning Middle India, which won the the prestigious 2023 Gaja Business Book Prize Award.