Harsh Goenka

Some Lesser Known Facts About Harsh Goenka

• Harsh Goenka grew up in Calcutta. According to Harsh, his upbringing in Calcutta is what led him to be highly influenced by Marxism.

• Harsh aspired to be a journalist but his parents wanted him to take over the family business. In an interview, Harsh talked about being convinced to become a businessman instead of a journalist and said they “brainwashed him” into choosing a capitalist path, removing his leftist approach and making him lead the family business as its fifth generation.

  

• In an interview, talking about his early days, before he became the chairman of RPG Enterprises when he had left-leaning ideologies, Harsh said,
  

  I considered going to the London School of Economics because it was left-leaning. I was influenced by the city’s addas, where students and unemployed youth debated politics and the state of the world over tea and cigarettes.” ^[1]Mint

• Soon after his graduation from the International Institute for Management Development, Lausanne, Switzerland, he became a member of the board of IMD.

• After graduating from IMD, in Switzerland, Harsh Goenka moved back to Mumbai, India.

• In 1983, at the age of 23, Harsh was appointed the managing director of the CEAT. During his earlier years in leading the family business, Harsh played a major role in many joint ventures and partnerships of the RPG group with Fortune 500 companies in India, including Vodafone, Fujitsu, Phelps Dodge, Yokohama, and Rolls-Royce.

• In 1990, Harsh Goenka was appointed as the chairman of the Rama Prasad Goenka Group after succeeding his father.

• After a decade, in 2010, the Rama Prasad Goenka Group was divided by R. P. Goenka among his sons, Harsh Goenka and Sanjiv Goenka.

• At the time of the division, the Rama Prasad Goenka Group had a market capital of Rs 9,150 crore and sales of Rs 13,313 crore.

• After the division, Harsh got the company’s power supply business KEC International, the software firm Zensar Technologies, the drug manufacturing unit RPG Life Science, and the tyre production firm CEAT.

• Harsh Goenka also got joint ownership of Spencer International Hotels Ltd along with his brother Sanjiv Goenka after the division.

• According to various reports, Harsh Goenka and his brother Sanjiv Goenka did not want their family business to split up but decided to split after the split of the Reliance group. In an interview, Harsh Goenka talked about not wanting to formally split his family business. He said,
  

  It (the split) is something that my father desired; neither my brother Sanjiv nor I wanted it to happen. It was literally thrust upon us…He has been telling us over the last two years, but we have been resisting it. But a day came when he made it a fait accomplishment.” ^[2]The Economic Times

• Harsh Goenka is involved in the management of multiple organisations. He is the former president of the Indian Merchants’ Chamber, an Indian organisation representing interests of Indian trade, commerce, and industry, and a member of the executive committee of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry, a non-governmental trade association and advocacy group based in India.

  

• He is a former Member of the Board of Governors of the National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE). He is the director of Bajaj Electricals Ltd and a Trustee of Breach Candy Hospital Trust.

• Through his multiple business ventures, Harsh Goenka supports many startups such as seniority. in, an e-commerce site for senior citizens.

• In November 2020, under his leadership, the RPG group was awarded the Most Innovative Company by The Economic Times.

• According to Forbes 2022, Harsh Goenka was named the 95th richest man in India, and as per the 2023 list of Forbes Richest Billionaires, he was listed at the 1434th position. 

• Harsh Goenka is a contemporary art enthusiast and an avid art collector. He has a huge collection of artworks at CEAT Mahal, RPG’s headquarters in Mumbai, which he describes as “nothing less than a gallery.”

• He annually hosts art exhibitions in Mumbai.

  

• He owns the works of many famous artists like M F. Hussain, Laxman Shrestha, Atul Dodiya, and Bikash Bhattacharjee. ^[3]Business Standard 

• Harsh Goenka is an active member of the National Art Advisory Committee for the National Gallery of Modern Art and a member of the Council of the National Culture Fund, Ministry of Culture.
  

  

   

• As per the Rama Prasad Goenka Group’s website, the RPG group has a turnover of $4 billion and it functions from many countries across the globe.

• Harsh Goenka loves cricket and promotes the CEAT Cricket Ratings for International and Domestic Cricket, a rating system that rewards outstanding cricketers around the world.

  

• Harsh describes himself as a foodie.

• He is a food critic and critiques food from different restaurants on Instagram and has more than 14 thousand followers on Instagram. His Instagram bio reads,
  

  Fond of food, people, art and sports.” ^[4]Instagram – Harsh Goenka

• Harsh Goenka serves many social causes including primary education, women empowerment, health, and city beautification.

• According to Harsh Goenka, he believes in the power of a good working environment and has not implemented any strict rules for the employees to follow as the employees can work from anywhere, there is a no cabin policy, and even the CEO has no cabin at one of the companies owned by him, and there is no mandatory attendance system.