A WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY

Once known only for working with the big boys’ club, Microsoft is changing its game in India with small and medium businesses, and startups, and stitching interesting tie-ups along the way.

- AVEEKDATTA AND SOURAV MAJUMDAR

BEFORE ANANT MAHESHWARI, 46, took over as the president of Microsoft India in September 2016, he had the customary meeting with Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive officer. During the meeting, Maheshwari put forth a disclosure that he knew nothing about the stuff that Microsoft did. “I wasn’t from the industry and didn’t know the products and systems and all that,” Maheshwari said when he met Fortune India at Microsoft’s Mumbai office on a crisp winter morning. “Satya’s answer was something that really warmed my heart.”

Nadella, chosen by Fortune as Businessperson of the Year for 2019 for the new direction in which he has steered the U.S.-based tech giant, told Maheshwari that him being an outsider may actually be an asset since he wouldn’t need to unlearn anything, but learn a lot. Maheshwari, a former McKinsey consultant, who was president, Honeywell India, immediately before joining Microsoft, describes the Redmond, Virginia-based corporation’s new culture as one of ‘Learn it All’, rather than ‘Know it All’.