Ajay Nanavati is a highly experienced global executive with over 35 years of cross-functional experience. He currently advises international companies looking to invest in India and helps Indian companies to implement growth strategies. His areas of expertise include global expansion, portfolio management/rationalization, talent acquisition/development, new product pipeline & go-to-market models.

Ajay Nanavati began his career at 3M as employee #1 in India, built the leadership team from scratch, set up local operations and the IPO for the first ever (and only) public JV subsidiary. During his subsequent 28 years with 3M, he held positions of increasing responsibility in various global roles, including starting three new subsidiaries, leading two global acquisitions and Managing Director, 3M Israel.

In 2008, Ajay Nanavati returned to India as the first Indian MD of 3M India Ltd. During his five-year term, he transformed the company by doubling revenues, built a world-class R&D Centre to drive "in-India-for-India" innovation, launched a leadership academy to develop a robust talent pipeline, expanded the geographic footprint in the country to broaden coverage and accelerated investment in local manufacturing with four new plants in the country. He drove a strong compliance and public company governance culture, navigated the organization through dramatic currency volatility and an inflationary environment to drive productivity, and launched a number of "new-to-3M" business models. He was an active participant in various external executive forums to build the 3M brand. He quadrupled market cap to $1B and was nominated in the top 10 most valuable CEOs for mid-sized companies in 2013 by Business World.

Ajay Nanavati is also an active mentor to start-ups and an innovation evangelist. Before taking early retirement, he was Director, 3M Global Channel Services & Director, and Director 3M Asia Pacific/Greater China Region responsible for accelerating 3M's growth in the region.