In Memoriam

Vineet Nayyar (1938-2024)

Vineet Nayyar, who died in New Delhi on May 16, 2024 at age 85 following a stroke, was an extraordinarily gifted human being. His professional career spanned more than six decades, in both the public and private sectors in India as well as at the Bank, where he spent some 10 years from 1978-1987. His deeply held personal values complemented his outstanding intellectual capabilities, amongst which was an unwavering commitment to personal integrity, which marked everything he did. He has left a lasting legacy in his native India, with the financing of new, prestigious schools, dedicated to the education of the current generation of Indians.

Vineet was a product of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), in the Haryana cadre, as was his wife, Reva, to whom he was married for over 50 years. By the time he joined the Bank in December 1977, having taken a leave of absence from the IAS, he had already held substantive responsibilities in the Indian government. These responsibilities provided invaluable experience in high level negotiations in countries such as Iraq and Iran.

Vineet joined the newly created Energy department of the Bank in December 1977, having recently completed a Master’s degree in development economics at Williams College, MA. His early Bank responsibilities were as task manager in challenging countries such as Egypt, Bangladesh, and especially China, at the time a new member of the World Bank Group. In China, he was able to develop a special relationship with his ministerial counterparts, which led to a major expansion of the Bank’s energy program. In 1982, he was appointed Division Chief for Energy in the East Asia and Pacific Region. Vineet once again led the development of expanded energy sector activities in a number of countries.

Vineet left the Bank and returned to India in 1987, where he had been appointed Managing Director and Chairman of the new, public sector natural gas company, GAIL. He managed this public sector company for 5 years, during which he successfully oversaw the completion of the South Bassein gas pipeline. He then moved to the private sector, initially as head of a new IT company in India, HCL. There began a new and highly successful phase of his professional life, which would last over a quarter of a century and beyond his 80th birthday. During this period, Vineet was appointed Executive Vice-Chairman and CEO of Tech Mahindra, Chairman of Mahindra Satyam, and Vice-Chairman of ILFS, and became a prominent businessman and IT executive, known throughout India.

We extend our deepest condolences to Vineet’s wife, Reva, to his three children, Vineeta, Namrata, and Nishant, as well as to his eight grandchildren.

 

Eugene McCarthy, Afsaneh Mashayekhi Beschloss, Khalid Ikram, Gautam Kaji, Hossein Razavi, Jayasankar Shivakumar, and Inder Sud