Partner
True North (formerly India Value Fund)
Haresh Chawla is currently a Partner at True North (formerly India Value Fund Advisors). True North is one of India's most experienced and respected private equity funds, with over $1.5 billion under management. At True North, he focuses on investments in the food and consumer sectors where he identifies and helps transform mid-size businesses.
He is best known though for his leadership in transforming the Network18 Group into a formidable media network. Under his watch as Founding CEO, Network 18 became India's fastest growing Media and Entertainment network.
In his dual leadership roles at Network18 and Viacom18, he built a media conglomerate that reached over 300 million households across platforms including television, print, films, mobile and internet.
His career at Network18 spanned 12 years, and he grew revenues from $3 million in 1999 to $500 million in 2012. He transformed the company from a TV production house to India's leading multi-media house with over 11 TV channels including Colors, CNBC-TV18, CNN IBN, MTV India and Nick India. He forged joint ventures and long-term partnerships with the world's largest media companies including NBC (Comcast), CNN, Viacom, Forbes, A&E Networks.
Haresh has also been keenly engaged in the consumer internet revolution in India from the early nineties. He is credited with building India's largest most well-known internet businesses like Moneycontrol, Bookmyshow, Yatra, Firstpost and Homeshop18. He continues as a successful investor and mentor to several internet and consumer start-ups today.
Earlier, Haresh has been part of founding teams at the HCL Comnet; ABCL, where he set up the Film Distribution Business, and at the Times of India Group where he launched Times Music.
Haresh holds a Bachelor's degree in Engineering from IIT Bombay and a Master's degree in Business Management from IIM Calcutta. He lives with his wife and two children in Mumbai.
34 articles written
A new set of winners and losers are poised to emerge from the ashes of the pandemic. And a wall of foreign capital is pouring in to fund a slew of digital startups. A peek into what 2021 portends
Last week, the Tatas announced their plans to launch a Super App. A whole bunch of global tech giants like Google, WhatsApp and Amazon and a behemoth like Reliance Jio are preparing to jump into the fray in India. And cement their dominance of a trillion dollar digital economy
There are things you can do to care at home, at the first signs of an infection, before you get to go to the hospital
The pace of change is accelerating. Uncertainty is growing. Businesses are on tenterhooks. And on the cusp of a new decade, India’s digital economy is yet again poised for a reset
Your smartphone is the gateway for platform businesses to drive their hooks deep into your psyche and pockets, edge out traditional businesses, and reset markets. In doing so, they are becoming monopolies, the likes of which we’ve never seen before. What is fair play in this new world?
India needs more startups and entrepreneurs. Antiquated sections of the Income Tax Act must be reworked
This Week: Haresh Chawla on the digital trends to watch for in 2019, interview with Kishore Mahbubani, Bitcoin, business models and more
How cheap bandwidth and smartphones together with micropayents will affect tectonic shifts in telecom, TV and Bollywood, retail, banking and more
As Walmart muscles into Indian e-commerce, the global war for retail dominance has a new battleground
How should you think of Aadhaar? What are the issues at stake?
