Sangeeth Varghese

Updated on Jan 23, 2024

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Nationality Indian Citizenship Indian Name Sangeeth Varghese		Ethnicity Indian Employer LeadCap Ventures

Education Leadership, Development Management, Economics. Known for Leadership, Youth Empowerment, Thought Leadership Alma mater London School of Economics and Political Science Books Open Source Leader: The Future of Organizations, Decide To Lead: 8 Decisions That Can Make You Lea

Yi regional summit kochi 2013 address by sangeeth varghese founder leadcap

Sangeeth Varghese is a leadership thinker from India, alumni of Harvard and London School of Economics. In 2007, Varghese founded LeadCap Trust, which focuses on youth empowerment and leadership. With an impact over 10 million youth, LeadCap is one of the largest leadership movements in the world.

Varghese is also the Founder and Chairman of LeadCap Ventures, a management consulting firm with emphasis on citizen and consumer behaviour. He is an ambassador for the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and was listed in the Marquis Who's Who in the World in the year 2012-13. he has consulted for nations from Africa and Asia, institutions like UNO, World Bank, ADB and Fortune 500 corporations like Microsoft, Intel, Unilever and Coca Cola. He also has the unique distinction of being part of the core teams that helped India's telecom penetration grow from 1 to 50% and the personal computer spread from the metros to tier 2 and 3 towns. He was chosen as "Young Global Leader" by the World Economic Forum in 2010.

Sangeeth varghese on leadcap

Initiatives

His other initiatives include :-

1) LeadCap Trust: Founder and Chairman. One of the largest youth leadership movements in the world, with programs impacting over 10 million Indian youth. The movement believes that leaders are not born or made, but is merely a decision that ordinary individuals make when faced with defining moments. It uses several unconventional routes like ‘Story Circles’ and ‘Living Libraries’ to empower more individuals.

2) LeadCap Ventures: Founder and Chairman. Strategic consulting and research firm focusing on citizen and consumer behavior. Offices in India, Middle East, Africa. Handled more than 1000 projects for clients including Governments of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Malawi, institutions like World Bank, ADB and UNDP and Fortune 500 corporations like Unilever, Microsoft, Google and Nestle.

3) Global Shapers Forum: Founding Curator. Global Shapers Forum aims at developing a new generation of youth leaders, role models and achievers.

4) Global Business Oath: Board Member. The Global Business Oath aims to transform the value system dominant today among business leaders around the world by (a) explicitly recognizing that the ultimate purpose of management is to serve society by bringing together people and resources to create sustainable and inclusive prosperity that no single individual can create alone, (b) recognizing that the effects (good and bad) of managerial decisions in the welfare of society are amplified by the accumulation of resources under legal corporations, and (c) proposing a code of conduct—a modern day “Hippocratic Oath of Business”—that spells out a commitment to “doing no harm” throughout the practice of management.

5) Future50: Founding Curator. An ambitious project to tap in to the collective intelligences of 100 greatest thought leaders of our time - in order to understand their vision of our world in 50 years. Envisaged as the first open source futurology project, where selected youth are also invited to contribute their visions of possible events, technical innovations, breakthroughs and social changes that our world shall go through.

6) Karnataka Knowledge Commission: Distinguished Member. Karnataka Knowledge Commission is a high-powered commission focused on transforming Karnataka in to a vibrant knowledge society. It is an important constituent of the Government of Karnataka, came into existence in the year 2008. The members of the Commission are drawn from diverse fields like education, science and technology, agriculture and industry.

7) Harvard Kennedy School: Alumni Awards Committee, 2013 Instituted in 1997, the HKS Alumni Achievement Award recognizes alumni more than six years into his or her career who have significantly improved the human condition on any level—local, state/provincial, national, or international. Recipients are honored for meaningful accomplishments or making a substantial difference on behalf of people, organizations, or governments, whether by a single influential act or by a series of steps that have produced positive change.

Professional career

Before he started working on matters of youth leadership, Varghese was a research associate at the London School of Economics. Here he worked on a paper along with the Department of Media and Communications - “Telecom Demand: Measures for Improving Affordability” (2007), funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). Prior to this, he was the head of strategy at Reliance Infocomm, as part of their coveted “Young Leaders Programme”. He developed two business plans “Affordable Mobile Telecommunications” and “Video Conferencing for Small/Medium Enterprises” which helped revolutionise the Indian telecommunication scenario. He played a key role in improving the telecom penetration of India from 1% in year 2000 to 50% in year 2004. During his early career days, he also played a critical role in increasing the presence of personal computers in India through the “Technology for the Mass” programme.

Author and Columnist

Once he returned to India from the London School of Economics, he was a columnist and contributing editor in several publications. This included:

1) Forbes.com: Contributing Editor He wrote a weekly column named 'Leading Edge', connecting leadership to life.

2) The Economic Times: Columnist He wrote a fortnightly column named 'Pole Position' addressing unconventional leadership in a conventional world.

3) BusinessWorld: Columnist He wrote a fortnightly a column named 'Sangeeth Varghese on Leadership' addressing corporate leadership issues.

Varghese has authored two best sellers:

1) Open Source Leader: Future of Organizations and Leadership: Penguin Portfolio, 2010 No. 1 business bestseller in India from January to June 2011. The book discussed how forward-looking organizations are moving away from the traditional closed forms towards an Open Source Leader model, where people are nurtured across layers by opening unto them the power and authority associated with leadership.

2) Decide to Lead: Nine Decisions That Can Make You a Leader: BusinessWorld Books, 2009 The book was based on the research insight that leadership is a decision made during a defining moment in an individuals life, rather than acquired through a legacy or education.

3) Defining Moments: Unraveling the DNA of Early Success: (to be published in 2015) The book is a journey to unlock the secrets of early success. Done through intense conversations with the Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum. Goal is to get those insights to enable parents to raise successful children, business schools to nurture success minded youth and managers to mold driven executives.