Som Mittal is an

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Associated with India * of or related to India ** Indian people ** Indian diaspora ** Languages of India ** Indian English, a dialect of the English language ** Indian cuisine Associated with indigenous peoples o ...

information technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

and automotive business executive.

Education and early career

Mittal received a bachelor's degree in engineering from

Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT- Kanpur or IIT-K) is a public institute of technology located in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. As an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), it was declared an Institute of National Importance by ...

and a Master of Business Administration from the

Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM Ahmedabad or IIM-A), is a business school, located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. It is one of the Indian Institutes of Management and was accorded the status of an Institute of National Impor ...

. He began his career in the engineering and automotive industry serving at

Larsen & Toubro Larsen & Toubro Limited, abbreviated as L&T, is an Indian multinational conglomerate, with interests in industrial technology, heavy industry, engineering, construction, manufacturing, power, information technology, defence and financial se ...

, Escorts and Denso from 1975 to 1989.

IT career

In 1989, Mittal joined the multinational IT services and consulting company

Wipro Wipro Limited () is an Indian multinational technology company based in Bengaluru. It provides information technology, consulting and business process services. It is one of India's Big Six IT services companies. Wipro's services include cloud ...

. He established their Peripherals Division and was eventually appointed to chief executive of the Server, PC and Services Division. In 1994, he joined Digital Equipment India Ltd. (DEIL), the Indian subsidiary of the American company

Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president until ...

(DEC), as managing director. During Mittal's tenure, it was acquired by

Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation was an American information technology, information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced some of the first IBM PC compati ...

in 1998 and renamed to Digital GlobalSoft Ltd. After Compaq's 2002 acquisition by

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...

, Mittal was appointed as senior vice president of HP Services for Asia-Pacific and Japan in 2006. In 2008, Mittal joined the

NASSCOM {{Infobox organization , logo = Nasscom-logo-svg.svg , alt = NASSCOM , logo_caption = NASSCOM's New logo , formation = {{start date and age, 1988, 03, 01, df=y , extinction ...

as its president. He had chaired NASSCOM's board from 2003 to 2004. As president of NASSCOM, he set up the

Data Security Council of India Data ( , ) are a collection of discrete or continuous values that convey information, describing the quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted formally ...

to promote data protection and develops best practices for security and privacy. In the aftermath of the 2010

Satyam scandal The Satyam Computer Services scandal was India's largest corporate fraud until 2010. The founder and directors of India-based outsourcing company Satyam Computer Services, falsified the accounts, inflated the share price, and stole large sums f ...

, NASSCOM played a crucial role in rebuilding market trust in India's IT industry. During his presidency, NASSCOM expanded its focus to include "internet and mobile content, software products and the domestic information technology (IT) market." Mittal retired as NASSCOM president on 3 January 2014. He was succeeded by former telecom secretary

R. Chandrasekhar Rentala Chandrashekhar was the former president of NASSCOM and former Secretary to the Indian Department of Information Technology, as well as former Secretary, Department of Telecommunications. He is also a member of the government's technology ...

Awards and recognition

In 2013, the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) gave him a lifetime achievement award for dedication to the growth of the Global ICT industry. The Financial Express of India called Mittal an industry "doyen." He has been awarded the Business Leader of the Year by Rotary International; and the Distinguished Alumnus Award by IIT Kanpur (2000).

Personal life

Som Mittal is married to author Vidhu Mittal. She suffered a stroke in 2012.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mittal, Som Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Businesspeople from Delhi