THE UNEXPECTED ENTREPRENEUR

Naveen Tewari, the co-founder and CEO of marketing cloud major InMobi, talks about how he challenged societal — and his own — perceptions around entrepreneurship and created a disruptive new age technology company

- PRIYANCA VAISHNAV

When you speak to Naveen Tewari, the first thing that strikes you is not the fact that he is the cofounder and CEO of the world’s leading marketing cloud company, InMobi. What really rings close home is the reminiscence of humble beginnings and aspiration to offer incisive solutions on a global scale.

Tewari’s “philosophy of constant innovation and disruption,” his website bio says, “is embedded deep into the DNA of InMobians and is resonated across InMobi. His dream is to reimagine advertising in a truly ‘user-first’ way and unlock the true potential of the mobile ecosystem.”

An engineering graduate from India’s premier technology institution, IIT-Kanpur, Tewari did his MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was bestowed with the Dean’s Award for his exceptional leadership and contribution. In 2013, his alma mater, IIT-Kanpur also honoured him with the esteemed Distinguished Alumnus Award for his excellence in entrepreneurship. But for the longest time, including his years at IIT, the young student was just not interested in starting or running a business at all.

But ask him if he’d goad more juniors and aspirants towards entrepreneurship and you get a glimpse into Tewari’s evolving thought process about it: “I was a lot more interested in technology. I grew up in an environment wherein business was not to be considered (as a career) at all. Business was not perceived as something that created value. It was perceived as an occupation that generated money. Money generation and value creation are not necessarily tied together.”