Rajat Gupta is an Indian-American businessman, who became the first foreign born managing

director of management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company from 1994 to 2003. In addition to
this, Gupta has been on the board of companies like Procter & Gamble, Goldman Sachs, and
American Airlines. He has also served as an advisor to non-profit organizations such as ‘The Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation’. Born in Maniktala in West Bengal, he is the son of a freedom fighter
turned journalist father and a school teacher mother. Having been orphaned at the age of 18, Gupta
went on to secure an All India Rank of 15 in the prestigious IIT-JEE examination and was admitted in
the Mechanical Engineering discipline of IIT Delhi on a merit scholarship. Post completion of
engineering, he was offered a job in ITC, which he refused to pursue further education. Meteoric
Rise He joined the prestigious Harvard Business School where he finished top of his class and
graduated with distinction as a Baker Scholar. Post this, he landed a job in Mckinsey & Company in
1973 as one of the earliest Indian-Americans at the firm. He began his career in the New York office
but was shipped to Scandinavia to become the head of Mckinsey offices in 1981. It was in this stint
that Gupta made his mark because Scandinavia, at that time, wasn’t considered to be the most
active of the places to work in.