Rajeev Roy

Rajeev Roy’s entrepreneurial journey began in the trenches of real-world business, not in a corporate boardroom. After pursuing his MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, he ventured into entrepreneurship, successfully building and exiting ventures across iverse industries, including food processing, knowledge process outsourcing, dairy products and microfinance. These hands-on experiences shaped his deep understanding of the challenges in building and scaling businesses – insights that now define his work as an educator and mentor.

Recognizing the lack of structured support for early-stage entrepreneurs, Rajeev transitioned to entrepreneurship education in 2005. Since then, he has trained over 1,000 entrepreneurs and 300+ educators, mentored more than 100 start-ups and advised leading corporations on product development, leadership and innovation. His mentorship and incubation programmes have supported founders of some of India’s most prominent start-ups, including Campus Sutra, Bewakoof, Practo, Thick Shake Factory, Hammer, VsnapU, Vahak and Ras.

His impact extends beyond India, spanning fourteen countries across five continents. He has established six incubators and accelerators in four nations. In Oman, he led the development of the world’s first Arabic-language entrepreneurship programme, now implemented across all universities and colleges in the country. In India, he has been instrumental in strengthening the start-up ecosystem. As the founding CEO of 36Inc in Raipur, he scaled it into the country’s second-largest incubator, supporting over 100 start-ups in its first year alone. Later, as the founding dean at the XLRI Xavier School of Management, Delhi-NCR, he achieved an unprecedented milestone – leading the institute to a top ten ranking in its very first year. Under his leadership, XLRI Delhi-NCR launched an MBA in entrepreneurship, now attracting over 30,000 applicants per cohort, positioning it as the most sought-after entrepreneurship programme globally.

He is currently the Director of Firstbridge, a newage business school focused on technology and emerging businesses.