Rajat Gupta

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Rajat Kumar Gupta (रजत कुमार गुप्त) was born in Maniktala, Calcutta, India on December 2, 1948. His parents were Ashwini Kumar Gupta and Pran Kumari Gupta, who had three other children. His father was a journalist with the Ananda Bazar Patrika Group and also a prominent freedom fighter who had been to jail many times during India's freedom struggle. His mother taught at a Montessori school. When Rajat was five the family moved to Delhi, where his father went to start the Hindustan Standard. Rajat was an outstanding student at Modern School. His father died when he was sixteen and his mother died when he was eighteen. He stood 15th at the national level in the highly competitive Indian Institute of Technology Joint Entrance Examination of 1966 and was admitted to the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi on a scholarship. He obtained his BTech in mechanical engineering in 1971. Very soon after he came to USA and enrolled in the prestigious Harvard Business School on a scholarship. He obtained his MBA in 1973. His colleagues at Harvard described him as an excellent student who could see the big picture very quickly. He joined McKinsey & Company in 1973 after an initial rejection since he had no work experience but went on to become the firms first managing director born outside of the USA completing three full terms at the coveted position. Gupta is widely regarded as among the first Indians to successfully break through the glass ceiling in corporate America. He is on the Advisory boards of Harvard Business School and the Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. He is married to his sweetheart from his IIT days, Anita. His wife is an electrical engineer, who is described by Rajat, as "a much smarter student" than himself. She is two years Rajat's junior. The couple met at college debates and plays. He resides in Westport, Connecticut with his wife and four children.

[edit] Career

Rajat Gupta is a former managing director of McKinsey & Company worldwide. He joined the firm's New York office in 1973, assumed leadership of its Scandinavian offices in 1981, and joined the Chicago office in 1987. He assumed the role of office manager there in 1989, was elected managing director of the firm in 1994 and re-elected twice, once in 1997 and again in 2000.

Since joining the firm, Gupta has directed a number of projects aimed at helping companies develop new product/market strategies and reorganize for improved effectiveness and operations capabilities. He has a broad range of consulting experience with a variety of industries, including telecommunications, energy, and consumer goods.

Gupta is Chairman of the Board of the Indian School of Business at Hyderabad, India, and is associated with many other professional and business affiliations, including: Private Sector Representative to the Board of the Global Fund for Aids, Malaria, and Tuberculosis; Chairman of the Board of Associates of the Harvard Business School; and Dean's Advisory Council, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management.

Gupta is Co-Chair of the American India Foundation (AIF), whose mission is to accelerate social and economic change in India. He is particularly interested in AIF's public health focus area, with an emphases on combatting HIV/AIDS in India.

Gupta was also recently appointed as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special advisor on management reform.

Gupta was appointed as an independent director at Goldman Sachs on 10th November 2006.