Vineet Nair, Vice-Chairman and CEO of HCL Technologies, is a leading executive of the global IT services company. He helped HCLT become one of the most profitable and fastest growing global IT services companies. Business Week named HCLT as one of the twenty most influential companies worldwide. Nair is active in the G100, a group that includes CEOs of some of the most important companies worldwide.

Nair was born in 1962 and received his bachelor's degree from Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar. He is a graduate of XLRI Jamshedpur and got his MBA in 1985. In the same year, he joined HCL as a Senior Manager Trainee (SMT). He founded a startup company called Comment. Here he implemented many of his ideas, which formed the basis of his famous "Employees First, Customer Second" philosophy.

Shiv Nadar, the founder of HCL, suggested that Nair take over the struggling infotech company, but Nair refused. It was 2004. Nair accepted the offer a year later and was elected president of HCL Technologies. It is a difficult initiation. HCL lost three clients within Nair's first week as president.

HCL has seen the highest organic growth among Indian IT companies over the next 18 months from a liquidation company. This is the case with Nair's Change Management Initiative. It was so successful that it was even featured as a case study in the Harvard Business Review.

He turned the company around in five years. HCL's revenue increased from USD 700 million to USD 2.6 billion. The company has also seen an increase in international expansion. Nair was appointed as the CEO of the company in 2007 and vice chairman in 2010.. The rest is history. Today, HCLT is recognized for its outstanding business performance and innovative management practices.

HCL sells IT-related services such as systems integration, outsourcing business processes, software engineering, high-tech R&D and software engineering. HCL is known for its technological strength and extraordinary focus on employee engagement and internal transparency.

Nair has re-engineered his business four times in the last eight years to highlight the unique value of his services. He demonstrated to the market that their organic model of business can grow faster than acquisition-based ones and can be the fastest growing company in the IT sector. They have launched innovative and disruptive initiatives like Employee First, 360-Degree Service + Thinking IT Framework and others without compromising their year-on-year growth.

His book, "Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upsidedown", focuses on how an idea can spark a revolution. Challenging the notion that customers should be the priority in companies, he overturned management hierarchies by holding employees accountable for their decisions. Nair's innovative approach has captured the imagination of customers and employees alike.

Hewitt Associates named HCLT as 'Best Employer India' and Business Week named HCLT as one of the five most influential, up-and-coming businesses in the world. Fortune magazine has described HCL as "the world's most modern management" and IDC has praised it for having "the most coherent and clear vision" in the IT services sector.

Nair's work in developing the EFCS model has been awarded several global citations by CeBIT. It is the largest international trade show showcasing ICT. National HRD Network also awarded Nair with the Pathfinder CEO Award 2010.

He is now 49 and has established himself as an outspoken, controversial figure in the IT industry. The self-described CEO isn't afraid to voice an opinion that has raised eyebrows in the past. He noted that many American college graduates are unemployed. After asking why HCL (a $2.5 billion company with over 3,000 employees in 21 offices in 15 states) isn't hiring more Americans, the answer is clear.

To keep up with technological trends, Nair embraced the new media communication tools that today's youth use for information. He blogs regularly about leadership and management. He is also a founding member of the Asia Gender Parity Group and an active member of the Global Gender Parity Group at the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Hence Nair focuses his attention on convergence challenges. According to Nair, HCL's revenue-sharing model and ongoing efforts to learn more from customers and outsiders, as well as from employees, reflect an internal understanding that the best insights can be found anywhere, if you recognize them and grasp them.