Shiv Nadar

Some Lesser Known Facts About Shiv Nadar

• Shiv Nadar is an Indian billionaire industrialist who is known for founding the Indian international IT firm HCL Technologies, and he is also known for his generous donations and efforts to philanthropy.

• Shiv Nadar was born in the present-day Thoothukudi district in Tamil Nadu. Shiv Nadar had been interested in studying, and in his early days, he changed several schools to get the best education. After switching three schools till the 10th standard, Shiv Nadar completed his high school (pre-university degree) from the American College, Madurai.

  

• In 1967, Shiv Nadar started his professional career with Walchand group’s Cooper Engineering Ltd. in Pune. After working for some time, he decided to give it up and start his own venture with his friends and colleagues were – Ajai Chowdhry, Subhash Arora, Yogesh Vaidya, S. Raman, Mahendra Pratap, Arjun Malhotra, and DS Puri.

  

• The name of his first company was Microcomp, which he started with his partners and they initially focused on selling teledigital calculators in the Indian market. In 1976, with an investment of Rs. 187,000, Nadar and his partners founded HCL.

• After a successful run in the country, HCL expanded to the international market with the opening of Far East Computers in Singapore where they sold IT hardware. With a revenue of Rs 1 million, the company decided to continue its operations in Singapore, and Shiv Nadar was the largest shareholder and he didn’t retain any management control.

• In 1989, Shiv Nadar decided to tap into the American computer hardware market, but the initial trials failed as they failed to fulfill the American restrictions; in 1991, they partnered with Hewlett Packard to form HCL HP Limited. This partnership helped them earn better revenue figures in the American market.

• In 1994, Shiv Nadar decided to follow the path of philanthropy and opened up the Shiv Nadar Foundation that worked for the benefit of the future generation by providing them quality education.

• With his interest in the field of education, Shiv Nadar founded the SSN College of Engineering in Chennai, Tamil Nadu in 1996. The college was named after his father Sivasubramaniya Nadar. He played an active role in the college’s functioning and activities such as gifting HCL shares worth Rs. 1 million to the college funds.

• In 1998, Shiv Nadar decided to divide his business into five different categories with HCL Technologies being the global IT Service Company, HCL Infosystems (the Indian IT hardware leader), HCL comnet (network service company), HCL Perot (IT applications), and NIIT for education services.

  

• In 2005, Nadar became a member of the executive board of the Indian School of Business.

• In 2006, Shiv Nadar announced that the university is also focusing on improving and promoting research in the university along with offering students benefits from tie-ups with foreign universities.

• In 2008, the trust decided to set up two Vidyagyan schools in Uttar Pradesh for the students in the rural region, and the school offered scholarships for 200 students from over fifty districts of Uttar Pradesh.

  

• In February 2011, Shiv Nadar visited his school Town Higher Secondary School, and made a donation of computers and other equipment worth Rs. 80 lakhs.

• Shiv Nadar had completed the majority of his education in the Tamil language, and he didn’t start speaking in English till the age of twenty-two years.

• Shiv Nadar’s wife, Kiran Nadar is an art collector and she has two private art museums in Delhi that showcase the vast art collection she has acquired over the years.

  

• In 2007, on the occasion of the 150th convocation of the University of Madras, Shiv Nadar was among the ten eminent people who received an honorary doctorate from the university.

• In 2008, Shiv Nadar received the Padma Bhushan by the President of India for his remarkable work in the field of trade, education, and industry development.

  

• In 2011, he was on the Forbes list of ’48 Heroes of Philanthropy’ in the Asia Pacific region. In 2015, he was named in ‘The Outstanding Philanthropist of the Year’ list by Forbes International.

• In 2013, Shiv Nadar was awarded the ‘BNP Paribas Grand Prize for Individual Philanthropy’ for the Shiv Nadar Foundation and for their accomplishments in the field of education.

  

• The first computer launched by Shiv Nadar’s company HCL was the ‘HCL 8C,’ which was available in the market for Rs. 300,000.

• Shiv Nadar managed to top the Philanthropy list of Hurun India twice – in 2016 and in 2019.

• With a net worth of $28.3 billion, Shiv Nadar is the third richest man in India and he holds 71 spots among the richest people across the world. ^[7]Forbes

• Ever since he started the foundation, Shiv Nadar has donated more than $1 billion to the Shiv Nadar Foundation, which helps in helping the underprivileged to gain access to quality education.

• In July 2020, Shiv Nadar stepped down from the position of chairperson of HCL Technologies as he appointed his only daughter Roshni Nadar as the new chairperson of the company. Shiv Nadar continued to be the managing director and the chief strategy officer of HCL Technologies.

  

• In July 2021, Shiv Nadar decided to step down as the managing director of HCL Technologies. He decided to be the chairman emeritus and strategic advisor for the firm. Shiv Nadar has decided to spend the rest of his life for philanthropy work.