Bharat Desai
#2555

Bharat Desai

United States 73 years old Self-Made

Overview

Source of Wealth
IT consulting
Industry
Technology
Residence
Fisher Island, Florida
Organization
Chairman and Co-founder at Syntel
Education
Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (Bachelor of Arts/Science)
University of Michigan, Stephen M. Ross School of Business (Master of Business Administration)
Marital Status
Married
Children
2

Biography

Bharat Desai founded IT consulting and outsourcing company Syntel with his wife Neerja Sethi from their apartment in Troy, Michigan in 1980.

In 2018 French IT firm Atos SE acquired Syntel for $3.4 billion in cash.

Atos sued Desai, accusing him of hiding liabilities ahead of the merger; the case was dismissed in 2023.

In its first year, Syntel generated just $30,000 in sales; before it was acquired, annual revenue grew to more than $900 million.

Desai, who was Syntel's chairman, was born in Kenya, raised in India and came to the U.S. in 1976 as a programmer for Tata.

About

Desai and Sethi started the company with just $2,000.

The couple met in the U.S. while working for pioneering IT firm, Tata Consultancy Services, the company they went on to emulate.