Harish Mehta was the driving force behind galvanizing the IT industry in India by co-founding NASSCOM, the IT industry’s apex association and advocacy body. He was elected as the first Chairman of NASSCOM and continues to be the Convener of NASSCOM’s Chairman’s Council. Harish has a long history of success as an Indian entrepreneur, investor and changemaker. He has founded, led, grown & mentored the Onward Group of companies, which today is a leading global engineering & analytics company with over 2800 employees in six countries that serve over 2000 of the largest global companies in North America & Europe. He introduced Silicon-Valley’s The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) to India, which now has 21 chapters in the country. He is the Director of the Indian Angel Network (IAN), one of the world’s largest and most active angel investor groups. He is also a former Expert Advisor at Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) for its Fund of Funds Operations, and a founding member of Infinity Venture Fund, India’s first corporate VC fund.

For his contributions, Harish has been awarded with ‘25 years of Exemplary Contribution to Indian IT’, by PM Narendra Modi, a ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’, by IMC Chamber of Commerce and Industry and ‘CEO of the Year’, by NMIMS, Tata HRD Network, and World HRD Congress. He has recently penned the national bestseller ‘The Maverick Effect’, which is currently in its fourth reprint. He has been selected for the CAII x SKOCH Foundation’s ‘CEO’s Choice Author of the Year Award’ and his book has been shortlisted by Gaja Capital as one of the ‘Top 5 Business Books of 2022’.