Board of Advisors

Rajat Gupta joined the board of directors of Project2Morrow in 2023. He is an Indian-American business executive who, as CEO, was the first foreign-born managing director of management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company from 1994 to 2003. Gupta was a board member of corporations including Goldman Sachs, Procter & Gamble and American Airlines, as well as an advisor to non-profit organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. He is the co-founder of the Indian School of Business, American India Foundation, New Silk Route and Scandent Solutions. Gupta was a student at Modern School in New Delhi. After high school, Gupta ranked 15th in the nation in the entrance exam for the Indian Institutes of Technology, IIT JEE. He received a Bachelor of Technology degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Delhi in 1971. His economics professor at IIT Delhi was Subramanian Swamy, who wrote his recommendation letter when he applied for Harvard Business School. Declining a job from the prestigious domestic firm ITC Limited, he received an MBA from Harvard Business School (HBS) in 1973. Gupta graduated with distinction as a Baker Scholar. Gupta remarked that the first time he saw an airplane was when he flew to ITC at their request to inform them he would be attending Harvard. Gupta joined McKinsey & Company in 1973 as one of the earliest Indian Americans at the consultancy. He was initially rejected because of inadequate work experience, a decision that was overturned after his Harvard Business School professor Walter J. Salmon called Ron Daniel, then head of the New York office and later also the managing director of McKinsey, wrote on Gupta's behalf.[6] Gupta's mentors at McKinsey included Ron Daniel, the former managing director who as senior partner first hired Gupta into the New York office, and Anupam (Tino) Puri, the first Indian at the firm and eventual senior partner. He, in turn, mentored Anil Kumar as another early Indian-American at the consultancy. Gupta and Kumar "were the face of McKinsey in India." According to The Financial Times, "the two operated as a forceful double-act to secure business for McKinsey, win access in Washington and build a brotherhood of donors around the Hyderabad-based ISB and a handful of social initiatives." Gupta began his career in New York before moving to Scandinavia to become the head of McKinsey offices in 1981. He did well in what was then considered a "backwater" area; this is where he first made his mark. Elected senior partner in 1984, he became head of the Chicago office in 1990. In 1994 he was elected the firm's first managing director (chief executive) born outside of the US, and then re-elected twice in 1997 and 2000. Gupta is widely regarded as one of the first Indians to successfully break through the glass ceiling, as the first Indian-born CEO of a multinational corporation (not just a consultancy). During Gupta's time as head of McKinsey, the firm opened offices in 23 new countries and doubled its consultant base to 891 partners, increasing revenue 280 percent to $3.4 billion. His annual salary was estimated at $5–10 million USD. Gupta joined Project2Morrow with another Harvard alumni Dr. Howard Moskowitz.