Mr. Ashok Soota

Chairman

Ashok Soota, Executive Chairman of Happiest Minds Technologies Limited, is widely recognized as one of the pioneering leaders of the Indian IT industry. As a serial entrepreneur, he has led both companies where he was founding Chairman to very successful IPOs: Happiest Minds (2020) and MindTree (2007). Ashok led the growth of Wipro’s IT business from a fledgling $ 2m company to become India’s largest computer company and second largest software company by 1999.

In April 2022, Ashok announced the creation of Happiest Health, a new age healthcare enterprise providing healthcare knowledge and services in diagnostics, wellness and healthcare.  

Ashok is a philanthropist for which he started SKAN in April 2021, a non-profit organization focusing on ageing and neurological research. SKAN’s areas of expertise include stem cells, gut microbiome, molecular biology and bioinformatics. SKAN has signed collaboration agreements with Cambridge University, Quadram Institute of Biosciences and Sanger Institute – all in the UK. Domestic project consortium partners include IIT-Roorkee, Narayana Health & MSMF, NIMHANS, MAHE, TDU and Svyasa.

The MISSION of SKAN is “Transforming The Future of Medicine. Impacting Millions of Lives.”

He also established in 2011 Ashirvadam, a Trust for environmental projects and assistance to the needy.  Ashok has been included in Forbes’ Asia Top 15 list of philanthropists in 2022.

Ashok has been the President of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), a member of the Prime Minister’s Task Force for IT and was on the Advisory Council for the World Intellectual Property Organization, Geneva.  He is a Fellow of INAE and CSI and on the Board of Governors of Asian Institute of Management (AIM), Philippines. He is a recipient of multiple awards for IT Person of the year and the ICSI Lifetime Achievement Award for Corporate Governance.

Ashok holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from University of Roorkee (now IIT, Roorkee) and an MBA from the Asian Institute of Management, Philippines.

Ashok is co-author of national bestsellers– “Entrepreneurship Simplified: From Idea to IPO” and ‘Busted’ which seeks to challenge many management myths. 

 His hobbies include trekking, the outdoors, yoga, tai chi, meditation and swimming.