Ravi Venkatesan
Chairman
Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd.
As the Chairman for Microsoft India, Ravi Venkatesan is directly responsible for Microsoft’s marketing, sales, operational and business development efforts in India. He provides a single point of leadership for Microsoft India, in partnership with the leaders of Microsoft’s other business units, playing an integral role in defining Microsoft’s relationship with policy makers, customers and business partners.
Ravi provides strategic direction to Microsoft’s four distinct business units in India; primarily the Sales and Marketing Subsidiary; Microsoft’s Indian Business Unit IT Development Center and the India Development Center in Hyderabad and the Global Support Centre in Bangalore. Prior to joining Microsoft, Ravi worked for over seven years with Cummins Inc, a US-based designer, manufacturer and distributor of engines and related technologies. He served as Vice President and Managing Director for Cummins India, Chairman of Cummins India Limited and Managing Director of Tata Cummins Limited, a joint venture between Cummins Inc. and Tata Motors.
Ravi earned his BS in Mechanical Engineering in 1985 from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, his MS in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University in 1986 and his MBA from Harvard University in 1992 where he was a Baker Scholar. Ravi was awarded Purdue University’s Outstanding Industrial Engineer award for the year 2000 and the Distinguished Alumnus award for 2003 by the Indian Institute of Technology.
Ravi is a member of the Confederation of Indian Industry and a member of the Advisory Council of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He is also a Director on the Board of Thermax Ltd. He has contributed frequently to the Harvard Business Review including “Cummins Engine Flexes its Factories”, “Strategic Sourcing -to Make or Not to Make” and “The Strategy that Wouldn’t Travel.”