Akhil Nigam
Founder and President, MassChallengeAkhil Nigam is the founder and President of MassChallenge, the largest startup accelerator and competition in the world. Based in Boston, MassChallenge every year accepts 128 early stage high impact companies from all over the world. In the last four years, MassChallenge alumni have raised well over $470M and have generated over $190M in revenue.
Akhil Nigam received his MBA from Harvard Business School and his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City (Valedictorian). He also completed a Masters in Financial Engineering from Columbia University.
Before MassChallenge, Akhil worked for Bain & Company where he worked on a variety of industries both in the Private equity and General Consulting practices. He advised major private equity firms on potential acquisition targets and conducted industry, competitor and financial due diligence. He also worked for Fidelity’s private equity practice helping technology and telecom companies with strategy, financial and operational issues.
Before business school, Akhil was one of the founding team members and part of the executive team of a high growth startup focused on software, Internet technology and IT services. In this role, he helped grow the firm to 100 employees in 5 years across the United States, India and Singapore. He was the youngest partner elected in the firm and gained extensive experience advising top level executives on technology strategy and trends while leading the firm’s new business development initiatives.
Akhil lived in India until age 12 and then attended high school in Zimbabwe before receiving a full 4-year scholarship to the Cooper Union.
