A Tireless Crusader and a Gentleman — Diwakar Nigam #JeenaIsiKaNaamHain

Avinash Raghava
#JeenaIsiKaNaamHain
3 min readSep 28, 2024

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Today we see many awesome product companies coming out of India with great UI, interoperability and user adoption.

It’s been a 20-year journey to where we are today.

The next 20 years will be extraordinary and as Diwakar Nigam, the Co-Founder of NewGen says, we will have many more product companies that will seize the global stage. Remember he co-founded the company in 1992, so he has seen it all — the trials and tribulations that Indian software product companies had to undergo. Before NewGen he started a company called Softek and was associated with it for 12 years.

We needn’t go back to the 80s or 90s; even 15 years ago, Indian IT was dominated by Services companies. Granted, they continue to straddle the landscape like the Colosseum of Rome, but product companies are closing the gap, if not in revenue & headcount but most certainly in impact by touching a billion lives.

We stand today on the shoulders of giants and Diwakar Nigam is one such crusader who always fought for product companies. There’s no other expression. He did fight hard — along with others — with crucial stakeholders such as the IT Associations to get a “Seat at The Table” for the community. It took several years of cumulative effort for the ecosystem to move and create waves.

Back in the days when I started the SME Community at NASSCOM (it’s nasscom, now) he was among the first few leaders whom I met. He was a founding member of NASSCOM, and the association was very dear to him. Mr. Nigam was upset that NASSCOM wasn’t doing enough for fledgling product companies which had the potential to grow big and create an impact globally.

He could see twenty years down the line.

He was extremely vocal — though he is a man of few words — but being a thorough gentleman, he had a unique way of putting his point across without being offensive. This is a quality which I believe a lot of young leaders can imbibe today — loud is not necessarily being impactful. NewGen had a niche product, and he felt the ecosystem could be strengthened and there, IT associations had a strong role to play. Naturally, being a founder member of NASSCOM, he had great influence which he put to good use for the benefit of product innovators.

Then 2 years down the line, the situation radically changed, and he had played a pivotal role. By then the NASSCOM SME community had started to grow and we started a Mentor Panel for small & medium-sized companies. The likes of Dhruva, Drishti Software were all mentored by him among others. Those sessions were of great value to the mentees, and he in turn got to interact very closely with top-class innovators who’d go on to make waves in the industry. He had seen both worlds — when products were just about starting up in India and later when they scaled. He brought a rare perspective and wisdom that leaders who have only seen the growth phase, cannot see.

Very high on energy, he has an incredible ability to stay connected with the product and the market. He would continue to be obsessively driven by NewGen’s products and worked constantly on how they could be improved upon. Today, NewGen is an 1200–1300 Crore (INR) company, and the Newgen team led by Jeet is at the helm.

Mr. Nigam is a Founder and Trustee at Plaksha University, and there he is just as obsessively driven about shaping the next generation of young Indians who will soon take over the reins.

I have observed him at the mentorship sessions, and he can really get to the nth level of detail. And yet, he doesn’t miss the wood for the trees — the strategic thinking is just as powerful.

It’s been a while since I met him, and I would like to take this opportunity to wish him the very best. And great health as well. Men like Mr. Nigam are shapers — they shape the destiny of a nation. It’s been an honour for me to have known him closely.

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Avinash Raghava
#JeenaIsiKaNaamHain

Building Community at @SaaSBoomi | Past: Community @ScaleTogether @Accel_India. Co-Founded@iSPIRT(@Product_Nation), @NASSCOM