Shiv Nadar
Founder and chairman of HCL, and Shiv Nadar Foundation
Age: 68
Rank in the Rich List -7
Net Worth: $8.6 billion
The Big Challenge Faced in the Last Year: Attracting the right talent to set the base for the foundation
The Way Forward: His most ambitious philanthropy initiative, Shiv Nadar University, is yet to stabilise. The big test will be two years later when the first batch of students from the university and VidyaGyaan School graduate
As the jet touches down on the runway at Lucknow airport, Shiv Nadar gestures towards the cabin and says, “Don’t go by these trappings… these are not me.” But it is difficult not to be impressed by the interiors of the plane, with its customised plush furniture that includes an office-like work area and sofas with large cushions that could belong to a luxury home.
Having said that, clad as he is in an off-white kurta-pyjama and leather slippers, it is surprisingly easy to disassociate Nadar from the opulence. To drive home the point, he adds, “I don’t own this. I don’t have a jet. It doesn’t suit my purpose.” With that, the founder and chairman of India’s fourth-largest IT exporter, HCL Technologies, steps out of the chartered flight.
At a time when success is equated with the acquisition of status symbols, Nadar, ranked seventh on the Forbes India Rich List with his $8.6 billion wealth, comes across as an unusual billionaire. Make no mistake: Nadar is still as obsessed with numbers as he was in his younger days, when he would even call up peers such as Wipro Chairman Azim Premji whenever his company would achieve an important milestone. And though he has taken a step back from the daily affairs of HCL since 2005, he is still involved where it matters. Nadar is currently overseeing an important transition at the top; longtime protégé Vineet Nayar had stepped down in early 2013 as CEO of flagship HCL Tech and was replaced by Anant Gupta (who was previously president and COO).
But it is not the affairs of HCL that dominate the mind of the man whose journey from the Thoothukudi district in Tamil Nadu to Noida in the National Capital Region of Delhi has become the stuff of legends in the Indian IT sector. Instead, Nadar is preoccupied with the progress of his “second baby” and “second largest investment”—the Shiv Nadar Foundation. Here in Lucknow, too, he has arrived on a Sunday morning to visit one of the two campuses of VidyaGyaan School run by his foundation.
About an hour ago, after the flight had taken off from Terminal One of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, Nadar had fondly narrated the story of one of the students from SSN College of Engineering that he had set up in Chennai in 1996. “The student’s father had died and his mother worked as a coolie. During his student days, he was employed as a watchman at night to support himself,” says Nadar. “Today he is in the US working as an IT professional and, in turn, supports poor, meritorious students at SSN,” he adds, beamingly.
The engineering college, named after his father Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar, was just the start of Nadar’s philanthropic ambitions. In the last four years, his foundation has expanded across several verticals of education. Presently, it is conducting a pilot project called Shiksha that wants to change the curriculum content of primary government schools in Uttar Pradesh. Then there are two schools—VidyaGyaan and Shiv Nadar School—that are widely different in concept; on the top of the pyramid is Nadar’s most ambitious project, Shiv Nadar University, or SNU, in Noida.
Nadar’s philanthropy model is different from what his peer Premji and fellow billionaire Sunil Mittal have adopted in their high-profile educational initiatives. Instead of partnering with local administrations, Nadar has opted to go solo (except in the case of Shiksha, where the eventual plan is to hand over the initiative to the government) and build the infrastructure himself. This has put Nadar among the highest investors in the philanthropy space in India. “Till now, the foundation has spent Rs 1,800 crore,” he says. As chairman of the foundation, in its meeting in early September, Nadar has committed to spend another Rs 3,000 crore over the next five years. Along with the nearly Rs 600 crore that the foundation plans to invest this year, the total expenditure of Rs 5,400 crore till 2018 makes Nadar the biggest philanthropist in India in terms of investment. (For instance, Premji has pledged 25 percent of his wealth but not much has been spent, and Mittal’s Bharti Foundation puts in about Rs 200 crore annually on education.)
Soul-searching by the family led them to the US where Nadar attended a meeting hosted by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet who have together led The Giving Pledge, a campaign that urges billionaires to commit half of their fortunes to charity. During the meeting, the two of them described how they have willed that all their foundations be dissolved after 20 years of their passing away. This vision has shaped the model of their philanthropy, which is ‘corrective’. “Their approach to philanthropy is project-based on deadlines, targets, budgets and time horizons,” says Roshni. “We chose to take the ‘creation’ route.” Roshni, a trustee of Shiv Nadar Foundation, has also taken up the promoter’s role in HCL and is CEO of the holding company, HCL Corp.
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(This story appears in the 28 November, 2013 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)
Great! Humility with wealth,rare combination.We salute u sir.
on Nov 22, 2013I hope that Shiv Nadar Foundation can complement the work that Azim Premji Foundation is doing. Good Luck.
on Nov 21, 2013Good article on Shri Shiv Nadar. The SSN Engineering College,Tamil Ndu is a reputed Engineering College started by Shri Shiv Nadar. The Shiv Nadar University and other initiatives are expected to be of top quality. Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
on Nov 19, 2013Mr. Nadar is a great philanthropist. I have the benefit of his visionary thinking in close quarters in umpteen faculty meetings when I was at SSN College of Engineering. He along with Dr. Katuri, the erstwhile principal were responsible for its phenomenal growth between 1996 to early 2000's when SSN peaked and then plateaued. The main reasons being: 1. Lack of time for Mr. Nadar - the faculty meetings became few and far between. 2. The lack of vision among his successors, who were not selected based on qualifications and performance and were not fit to lead knowledge workers. Their autocratic leadership style bordering on bullying were suitable to either agriculture or manufacturing industry, but definitely not in a knowledge focused service industry. 3. the promotion policy or lack of it - Even though there is a promotion policy it is .not followed. Most of the higher level positions is filled up by external appointment. People with better qualifications and experience are ignored on some flimsy grounds. An example, is that the director, HoD and many of the professors of MBA department either do not have a Ph.d. (as is cited for internal faculty). 3. The incentives are not awarded in a transparent fashion. Even though they have a format for self assessment, the marks awarded by HoD or principal/ Director is neither disclosed nor clarified, resulting in the people kow towing the principal/director get higher incentives than those who deserve. This affects the productivity of the knowledge worker which restricts the performance of the institution. Perhaps that is why SNU came in Noida instead of upradation of SSN institutions. If SNU is to flourish it has to avoid the mistakes of SSN and nourish the true performers instead of being led by family members and yes men. My best wishes to SNU and wish Mr. Nadar greater success - for he represents the aspiration of Indian youths.
on Nov 19, 2013