Roshni Nadar Malhotra is the chairperson of HCL Technologies, known as HCLTech, and the first woman to lead a listed IT company in India. She is the only child of the HCL Group founder Shiv Nadar, and she also serves as chief executive of HCL Corporation, the holding company of all HCL Group entities. She took over as HCLTech chairperson from her father in July 2020, according to profiles of her career, and in March 2025 Shiv Nadar transferred 47 percent of his stake in HCL to her, which made her the company’s largest shareholder after him.
She was born in 1981 or 1982 to Shiv Nadar and the philanthropist Kiran Nadar and grew up in Delhi, where she studied at Vasant Valley School. She graduated from Northwestern University, majoring in communication with a focus on radio, television and film, and earned an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management. Before joining HCL she worked in various companies as a producer, a background that is unusual for a technology executive.
Within a year of joining HCL she was elevated to executive director and chief executive of HCL Corporation. She later became chairperson of HCL Technologies after her father stepped down. Before taking the corporation’s top job she was a trustee of the Shiv Nadar Foundation, which runs the non-profit Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar College of Engineering in Chennai. As of early 2026 the foundation reports having invested more than $1.83 billion in institutions focused on academic excellence and leadership development.
Her philanthropic work is concentrated in education and conservation. She is the chairperson of VidyaGyan, a leadership academy for economically disadvantaged but meritorious rural students in Uttar Pradesh. She set up The Habitats Trust, which aims to protect India’s natural habitats and indigenous species and to create and conserve sustainable ecosystems. She is also co-conference chair of the St. Gallen Symposium, together with Lord Brian Griffiths and Dominic Barton.
Forbes has repeatedly ranked her among the most powerful women in the world. In 2019 she ranked 54th and in 2023 and 2024 she ranked 60th on its list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women, and in 2025 she was ranked 76th on its Power Women list, as reported in profiles. Forbes also named her among the 25 most powerful businesswomen in Asia in 2020. HCLTech has a market capitalisation of about $55 billion, according to the profile published by the company’s leadership page.
She is a trained classical musician. In 2010 she married Shikhar Malhotra, vice chairman of HCL Healthcare, and they have two sons. Her father, Shiv Nadar, is described by Wikipedia as the third-richest person in India.
The Wikipedia article gives her birth year only as 1981 or 1982, so IndiaX24 does not give an exact age. Her story shows how large Indian business groups pass leadership across generations: she moved from television production to heading a technology company with global operations, and the transfer of her father’s shares in 2025 confirms that she is expected to lead it for the long term.
Featured image: Roshni Nadar Malhotra at Shiv Nadar University during a visit by the US Ambassador, July 2015 (file photo). Photo by US EMBASSY NEW DELHI, in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
