Mumbai-based, Manish Naik [Major Manish Naik (Parakram Padak Awardee Veteran)], an ex-NDA army officer [78 India Squadron | 88 Kohima Company] served with the Indian infantry [7 Dogra]. Upon his commission in 1991 through India’s NDA and IMA programs, he entered the infantry’s combat training pipeline, where he acquired skills as a dedicated battle-ready soldier. In a critical anti-terror mission in Kashmir in 1993, Manish sustained combat wounds in the then terror-infested J&K. Despite his injuries, he continued with the fight against terror, and even volunteered for a conflict-zone tenure on the Siachen Glacier. Plus, Manish acquired wide-ranging leadership experience in India’s northeast on military staff assignments.
Post military, Manish led a versatile corporate career, and donned many CXO level assignments in business outfits, nonprofits, and in venture incubation setups. Later in his entrepreneurial career, he co-founded a boutique crisis management consulting firm with a fellow Columbia University alumnus. He also headed a leading facility management firm as its Group CEO and took it to a different orbit, and had been the COO of an advertising agency and a joint-sector mining firm. In the academia (as professor of practice and subject matter expert), he had been teaching entrepreneurship development, HRD and general management at some leading business schools of Mumbai and Pune.
Passionate about ramping up social and business operations, as his career progressed, he cofounded three nonprofits for some opportune strategic and social thrusts. To boost his working style and deliverables, besides his masters in HR from JBIMS, Mumbai, he attended some very immersive programs at Ivy League institutions of Columbia and Harvard universities. An alumnus of Columbia Business School (SLP ‘11) and Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education (HKSEE ’09, ‘10, ‘11), Manish studied nonprofit leadership, advanced negotiations, and crisis leadership at these top global schools.
Overall, his 33 years of experience is across an amalgam of corporate, military, and academic space, and he brings in a cutting-edge, real-world experience to business leadership with an intuitive understanding, and a global foresight. At present, besides ramping up vital skillsets of armed forces’ veterans, he is working on a social enterprise model to bridge social divides, and is making singular content for enhancing productivity of working professionals and entrepreneurs. Manish’s research interests include: career pivots, transition management; skills enhancement; military and nonprofit leadership; leadership development; military history; sustainability studies; social entrepreneurship; advanced negotiations; and crisis leadership.