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Indrajit Gupta

Indrajit Gupta

Co-founder and Director at Founding Fuel

Indrajit Gupta is a business journalist and editor with over two decades of experience. He was the Founding Editor of the Indian edition of Forbes magazine. Within four years of its launch, Forbes India became the most influential magazine in its space.

He is the co-founder and director at Founding Fuel.

He has served in leadership positions at many of the leading media brands in the country. Before taking up the assignment to start up the India edition of Forbes magazine, Gupta was the Resident Editor of The Economic Times in Mumbai and before that, the National Business Editor of The Times of India.

Over the years, Gupta has built a reputation for grooming talent and creating highly energised and purposeful newsrooms. He has interviewed several leading global thought-leaders and business leaders including CK Prahalad, Ram Charan, Wayne Brockbank, Sumantra Ghoshal, Carlos Ghosn and Nitin Nohria, and also led cutting-edge joint research-based projects with McKinsey & Co, The Great Place to Work Institute, Boston Consulting Group, KMPG and Coopers & Lybrand.

He won the Polestar journalism award in 2010 and was awarded the Chevening fellowship by the British Foreign office in 1999. Gupta is an alumnus of the SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai and a B.Com (Hons) graduate from St Xavier's College, Calcutta.

Gupta teaches a course on Business Problem Solving at his alma mater. He writes a column named Strategic Intent in Business Standard's edit page. He lives in Mumbai with his wife and two young daughters.

My Work

They Don't Make Them Like Tino Anymore
·Leadership & Organisation

They Don't Make Them Like Tino Anymore

McKinsey’s first Indian hire. Mentor to generations. Architect of an enduring legacy

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Indrajit Gupta

Indrajit Gupta

Co-founder and Director, Founding Fuel

AI 171: The Investigation That Could Redefine Aviation Safety: Part 1
·Economy, Policy & Society

AI 171: The Investigation That Could Redefine Aviation Safety: Part 1

A modern Boeing Dreamliner fell from the sky seconds after takeoff—now, the race is on to uncover whether this was a tragic outlier or a signal that something deeper is broken. The first in a three part series

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Indrajit Gupta
AS
Anmol Shrivastava

Indrajit Gupta & Anmol Shrivastava

How L&T completely muffed up a valuable teachable moment
·Leadership & Organisation

How L&T completely muffed up a valuable teachable moment

Around the world, CEOs, even the smartest of the lot, are known to occasionally suffer from a foot-in-the-mouth disease. Yet there are playbooks in place on how to deal with such crises–something that L&T has chosen to ignore.

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Indrajit Gupta

Indrajit Gupta

Co-founder and Director, Founding Fuel

Hybrids in an EV era
·Business & Strategy

Hybrids in an EV era

Propelled by the Toyota and Suzuki partnership, the resurgence of hybrids is a signal that the electric mobility revolution in India may take a lot longer than was assumed

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Indrajit Gupta

Indrajit Gupta

Co-founder and Director, Founding Fuel

Behind Crotonville’s demise
·Leadership & Organisation

Behind Crotonville’s demise

It is tempting to dismiss corporate universities as a relic of a bygone era. The reality may well be a bit more nuanced

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Indrajit Gupta

Indrajit Gupta

Co-founder and Director, Founding Fuel

FF Life: Ramzaan in the Bohri Mohalla
·FF Life

FF Life: Ramzaan in the Bohri Mohalla

The Mohalla is a magnet for foodies during the holy month. Now as an ambitious redevelopment project slowly changes the landscape, the traditional food businesses are morphing too

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Indrajit Gupta

Indrajit Gupta

Co-founder and Director, Founding Fuel

Tales of transitions
·Leadership & Organisation

Tales of transitions

Many competent leaders from different domains aspire to join public life. But the transition is never an easy one

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Indrajit Gupta

Indrajit Gupta

Co-founder and Director, Founding Fuel

Paytm: Emperor’s new clothes
·Business & Strategy

Paytm: Emperor’s new clothes

At the heart of the fintech major’s precarious slide lies the abject failure of its Super App strategy. But that’s just one part of the story.

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Indrajit Gupta

Indrajit Gupta

Co-founder and Director, Founding Fuel

Indian cricket’s moment of truth
·Leadership & Organisation

Indian cricket’s moment of truth

BCCI faces a set of crucial decisions ahead that could set the pace for the future

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Indrajit Gupta

Indrajit Gupta

Co-founder and Director, Founding Fuel

Why building corporate democracies still matter
·Leadership & Organisation

Why building corporate democracies still matter

In this age of AI, creating an employee-first culture may seem counter-intuitive. But not if you believe in the primacy of building human relationships at the workplace

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Indrajit Gupta

Indrajit Gupta

Co-founder and Director, Founding Fuel

Behind ITC’s hotels demerger
·Business & Strategy

Behind ITC’s hotels demerger

Chairman and MD Sanjiv Puri is trying to kill three birds with one stone

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Indrajit Gupta

Indrajit Gupta

Co-founder and Director, Founding Fuel

Noel Tata’s brahmastra
·Business & Strategy

Noel Tata’s brahmastra

His value lifestyle brand Zudio has caught the attention of the entire retail industry. It also signals a coming of age of retail in small town India

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Indrajit Gupta

Indrajit Gupta

Co-founder and Director, Founding Fuel

Modern Times redux
·Economy, Policy & Society

Modern Times redux

Is the government’s Make in India programme creating a system where a large section of workers in manufacturing could find themselves trapped in low wage jobs with no future?

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Indrajit Gupta

Indrajit Gupta

Co-founder and Director, Founding Fuel

How (not) to build your personal brand
·Work, Careers & Personal Mastery

How (not) to build your personal brand

FF Life: The power of social media has lulled leaders into believing that a carefully curated digital identity is the sure-fire passport to success. They are entirely off-the-mark

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Indrajit Gupta

Indrajit Gupta

Co-founder and Director, Founding Fuel

Building leaders for and in India
·Leadership & Organisation

Building leaders for and in India

What do we need more of: leaders who dominate global institutions or local leaders with a make-in-India mindset?

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Indrajit Gupta

Indrajit Gupta

Co-founder and Director, Founding Fuel

7 Big Trends in Air Travel: What to Expect in 2023
·FF Life

7 Big Trends in Air Travel: What to Expect in 2023

FF Life: Major shifts are on the anvil this year around the world and in India to fix the endemic issues—and significantly improve the passenger experience. But here’s the nub: air travel may actually get worse, before it gets a lot better

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Indrajit Gupta

Indrajit Gupta

Co-founder and Director, Founding Fuel

Adani’s NDTV takeover: The end game
·Business & Strategy

Adani’s NDTV takeover: The end game

The three-month-long takeover saga is reaching its climax. What happens next? (Updated on December 6, and December 24, 2022)

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Indrajit Gupta

Indrajit Gupta

Co-founder and Director, Founding Fuel