Shiv Nadar

Founder and chairman of HCL Technologies

Founder of SSN College of Engineering

Net worth: US$11.4 billion (Sep 2016)

Shiv Nadar (born 14 July 1945) is an Indian industrialist and philanthropist. He is the founder and chairman of HCL and the Shiv Nadar Foundation. Nadar founded HCL in the mid-1970s and transformed the IT hardware company into an IT enterprise over the next three decades by constantly reinventing his company's focus. In 2008, Nadar was awarded Padma Bhushan for his efforts in the IT industry.^[4] Nadar, nicknamed by friends as Magus (Old Persian for "wizard"), since the mid-1990s has focused his efforts on developing the educational system of India through the Shiv Nadar Foundation.^[6] He is the brother of Tamil novelist Ramanichandran.

Nadar began his career at Walchand group's Cooper Engineering in Pune in 1967. he soon gave it up to begin his own venture, in partnerships with several friends and colleagues. These partners were Ajai Chowdhry (Ex-Chairman, HCL Infosystems), Arjun Malhotra (CEO and Chairman, Headstrong), Subhash Arora, Yogesh Vaidya, S. Raman, Mahendra Pratap and DS Puri.

The initial enterprise which Nadar and his partners began was Microcomp, a company which focused on selling teledigital calculators in the Indian market. HCL was founded in 1976, with an investment of Rs. 187,000.

In 1980, HCL ventured into the international market with the opening of Far East Computers in Singapore to sell IT hardware. The venture reported Rs 1 million revenue in the first year and continued to address the Singapore operations. Nadar remained the largest shareholder without retaining any management control.

Awards and accolades

In 2008, the government of India awarded Nadar with a Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award, for his contribution to the IT industry.

In 2007, Madras University awarded him an honorary doctorate degree. Nadar was also recognised as E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year 2007 (Services).

In 1995 he became the Dataquest IT Man of the year. the In 2005 he was bestowed with CNBC Business Excellence Award. In 2006 he received an honorary fellowship from the All India Management Association. In 2009 he was counted amongst Forbes' 48 Heroes of Philanthropy in Asia Pacific. In 2010 he received the Dataquest Lifetime Achievement Award.

In April 2017, India Today magazine ranked Nadar #16th in India's 50 most powerful people of 2017 list.