Dr. Hitendra Wadhwa

Founder & CEO, Adjunct Professor, Columbia Business School

Hitendra’s mission is to discover, codify, and teach the laws of success in life and leadership which form the foundation of our work at Mentora. With an MBA and Ph.D. 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”, published by Hachette Book Group in 2022.

As Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School and Founder of the Mentora Institute, he has coached dozens of Fortune 100 C-suite executives and taught more than ten thousand MBAs, executives, 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.” Psychology Today states, “The award-winning professor promises not how to make a living, but how to live.”

Hitendra’s podcast, Intersections, features acclaimed thought leaders and practitioners reflecting on how to dissolve cultural, disciplinary, and other boundaries to achieve our highest potential in life.

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.