When a brilliant mind and intense caring go hand-in-hand, a lasting impact can be created. Anurag Behar, CEO of Azim Premji Foundation, moved from the top role in the corporate world to committing himself completely to creating deep, at-scale and institutionalised impact on the quality of public education in India. Hear this passionate and humble leader share his #Top3Practices that help him deliver on the many roles and responsibilities he owns.

Anurag Behar
CEO, Azim Premji Foundation &
Vice Chancellor, Azim Premji University

The Azim Premji Foundation is committed to a vision of “contributing towards a just, equitable, humane and sustainable society”. It runs institutions and programs in India for improving school education and in other fields of human development. The field work of the Foundation is in collaboration with various state governments, to help improve equity and quality of the public education system. The current geographical focus of this work is in 7 states of India, which have over 350,000 schools. The Foundation has established the not-for-profit Azim Premji University, with teaching and research programs focused on the fields of Education and Development.
Anurag also serves as the Vice Chancellor of this University. He is closely involved with Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives, a grant-making organization supporting not-for-profit organizations working on certain specific issues in the social sector.

Anurag has been engaged with efforts to improve education in India for the past fifteen years. He has been a vocal advocate for the critical importance of public systems, in particular the public education system. His many years in business have given him an insider’s view in to both the possibilities and limits of markets. For the past few years he has also been engaged with environmental and ecological issues. He writes a fortnightly column for the newspaper Mint, on Education and Ecology, available on www.livemint.com.

Anurag has earlier played leadership roles in business. As the CEO of Wipro Infrastructure Engineering, he led the business from being No. 20 in the world to being the No. 1 in 5 years. The business has operations in Europe, India, Brazil, and China. He led Wipro’s investments in two strategic diversifications – in the Clean Energy and Water sectors. He has been responsible for many corporate functions for Wipro including Brand, Quality and Innovation. In the early part of his career he was part of the team that built the leadership position of Wipro GE Healthcare in South Asia.
He continues to be associated with Wipro, providing oversight to the social and ecological initiatives of the Wipro Group, as its Chief Sustainability Officer. He is a member of Wipro’s Group Executive Council.

Anurag has served on the Board of Wipro GE Healthcare Ltd and of the TERI University. He serves on various government & industry councils, such as the National Mission on Teachers and Teacher Education, the Government of India implementation committee for the Justice Verma Commission, and with the CII’s National Climate Change Council.

He is on the board of the Institute of Trans-Disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology.
He was elected as a ‘Young Global Leader’, by the World Economic Forum in 2008.
He has an MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur and a BE in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Trichy. Both institutions have honored him with their Distinguished Alumnus award.

He enjoys long distance running and bollywood music

Interesting Articles written by Anurang in Livemint News

Sustainable and just jobs for all : https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/CM0USHZoSjrJ083yMUgzTM/Opinion–Sustainable-and-just-jobs-for-all.html

Opinion | The dream of a new India trapped in old realities: https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/wVtxiRo9IVOMNsKs0o0AfM/Opinion–The-dream-of-a-new-India-trapped-in-old-realities.html

What teachers believe about their students matters : https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/T2cnyrAPEjb6bjy8X2GShP/What-teachers-believe-about-their-students-matters.html

The ordinary men and women of India : https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/CEStz6Y9K7MfNkQ2JLG8MO/The-ordinary-men-and-women-of-India.html

Countering the false narrative – Education can improve only as much as classroom pedagogic practice and school culture improves : https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/RQdpO6gMbfcXHQdSl3fJCP/Countering-the-false-narrative.html

The sordid tale of teacher education in India  : https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/mMlpr6ApjWOftrA8ktpWRP/The-sordid-tale-of-teacher-education-in-India.html

School education in an uncertain world : https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/5ZLURN7DMTXJYeRthJZ4UJ/School-education-in-an-uncertain-world.html

A day on the road : https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/hrSwq1xrmVrQY6Vyi1qZEO/Anurag-Behar-A-day-on-the-road.html

Interesting Links

https://idronline.org/author/anurag-behar/

https://www.livehindustan.com/tags/anurag-behar

http://www.cessedu.org/node/107

https://www.thehindu.com/profile/author/Anurag-Behar/

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