Hitendra Wadhwa, PhD, is the founder and chief executive officer of Mentora Institute and an adjunct professor at Columbia University Business School. His mission is to discover, codify, and teach the laws of success in life and leadership. With a master’s and doctoral degree from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and a lifelong study of the world’s mystic traditions, Wadhwa brings a mathematician’s rigor and a truth-seeker’s spirit to some of today’s most vexing questions about authenticity, success, leadership, and human potential. He has codified these principles in his book, Inner Mastery, Outer Impact: How Your Five Core Energies Hold the Key to Success.
Dr. Wadhwa has coached dozens of Fortune 100 C-suite executives and taught more than 10,000 doctors, lawyers, social activists, and educators. His class on Personal Leadership & Success at Columbia has, for many years, been the most popular leadership elective, earning him the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence and the Executive-MBA Commitment to Excellence Award.
Hitendra’s work has been covered by leading media, including Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Forbes, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, and more. Hitendra’s lessons, says the BBC World Service, “are about how to become a master of yourself before trying to be a master of the universe.” His podcast, Intersections, features acclaimed thought leaders and practitioners.
Hitendra’s Mentora Institute is at the forefront of creating a simple, personalized approach to developing leaders. His clients include Accenture, Chevron, Ericsson, Kraft Heinz, Lululemon, Morgan Stanley, New York Times, SAP, the Tata Group, and United Health Group. His nonprofit Mentora Foundation is developing a fellowship of global changemakers. Previously, Wadhwa was a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Company and the CEO/founder of a Silicon Valley start-up, Paramark, which was twice recognized as a Top-100 Internet technology company by Technologic Partners/Venture Wire.