MR. AJAY NANAVATI

Mr. Ajay Nanavati is a seasoned global executive with 35+ years of multi-country, cross-functional experience. He started his career with the Tata Group and joined 3M in India in 1988 as its first employee. He was responsible for forming the JV & building the organization from scratch. In the subsequent 28 years with 3M he held positions of increasing responsibility in different parts of the world. In 1993, he relocated to Singapore to manage the APAC region for the telecom business. He moved to divisional Headquarter in Austin, Texas in 1998 where he led the launch of a major new services diversification initiative for the corporation as well as integration of a large French/German acquisition. He spent the subsequent 4 years at corporate HQ in St. Paul, MN in senior strategy & new business development roles including identifying & leading the acquisition & integration of a new-to-the-company technology venture.

In 2005, he moved to Israel as Managing Director of 3M Israel. He returned to India in 2008 as the first Indian MD of 3M’s only public company outside the US. During this 5 year stint the company’s revenues doubled, market cap quadrupled, a major R&D center was set up and local manufacturing ramped up. He is currently on the board of Alicon Ltd. Additionally, he is an active innovation evangelist on various forums, mentors start-ups/SME’s and is an angel investor. He is the co-chair of the CII Directors Guild on corporate governance, a member of the CII Start-up council, Advisory Board of International Institute of Information Technology (IIITB) & Advisory Board of Israel Center, IIMB. Mr. Nanavati holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from Virginia Tech., USA.