Shiv Shivakumar

Shiv Shivakumar, popularly known as Shiv, has held various leadership positions in Indian and multinational companies. Shiv is currently operating partner at Advent International, a leading $100 billion private equity firm based out of Boston. He worked at Hindustan Unilever for nineteen years in sales, marketing and general management before he joined Philips India as CEO for their consumer electronics division. This was the start of his twenty-year stint as CEO across Nokia, PepsiCo and the Aditya Birla Group, making him one of India Inc’s longest serving CEOs.

Shiv is a management thinker, board chairman, independent director, corporate speaker and business school teacher. He is the author of two bestselling books—The Right Choice and The Art of Management. Shiv is on the boards and advisory boards of Power Grid India, SHRM, The Economist, Vadilal Industries, iD Fresh, Yes Bank and Penguin Random House India. He has also served on various boards of business schools, such as IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Calcutta, IIM Udaipur, XLRI, Xavier University, SPJIMR and Great Lakes.

Shiv is a strong believer in giving back, especially to schools and colleges. Over the years, he has delivered more than forty convocation and commencement speeches across business schools. He graduated from IIT Madras, IIM Calcutta and the Wharton School of Business.