The middle-class Thane boy who made it big in the US

Thane: Milind Madhav Nagnur (40) is a Thanekar and a role model for youngsters from the city. A man from a middle-class Maharashtrian family in Naupada, he went on to attain a lot of success in New York.A topper at the AK Joshi English School and IIT-Bombay and IIM-Calcutta, Nagnur, at 25, authored a book on Java2 Network Security for IBM Publication. This was later included in the syllabus of many Ivy League colleges. Nagnur was then showered with job offers from the US and worked with companies such as Business Edge Solutions and J P Morgan Chase before joining Citigroup in 2006 as vice-president.Now, he is managing director with Citigroup, supervising and building software systems handling global financial transactions running into billions every day.In school, Nagnur was among the top five students at the Maharashtra Talent Search Competition and the National Talent Search Competition and was ranked 11th in the state in the SSC exams in 1990. After two years at V G Vaze and Kelkar College, Mulund, Nagnur was ranked 6th in the HSC board exams in 1992 and cleared the entrance exams at IIT-Bombay. There, after his B Tech in mechanical engineering, he did his post-graduation in Finance and Computer Information System at IIM-Calcutta in 1998 and got the Best All-Round Student award.“My first campus placement was at SBI Capital market for equity research. But I quit in three months for a job at PricewaterhouseCoopers,” Nagnur told TOI.“I came from a middle-class family with no connections or money to splurge. My parents always reminded me and my elder brother that we did not have any ancestral inheritance and would have to work hard to achieve our goals. Each person may have a different skill, talent or passion. They need to explore everything from academics to sports to the arts and find their unique sweet spot and work hard to make it shine,” he said.Dr Manisha Gogri, Nagnur’s classmate in school and a friend who practices at Seven Hills Hospital said, “We knew Milind’s hard work and dedication would take him a long way. But Milind also had another side. He loved theatre and was part of many school plays. While completing his higher education, he also tutored many underprivileged children.”Amlesh Karle (40), Nagnur’s best friend since Jr KG, who is now a cosmetics manufacturer in Thane, said, “Milind always had balance. He worked hard, regularly visited the Ganpati mandir and spent the rest of his time playing cricket with us. He was good at that too.”Milind’s father, Madhav (73), said “My wife and I were both working in the telecommunication sector. We couldn’t pay much attention to either of our son’s academics. But we never had to tell them to study. Inspired by Shreedhar, his elder brother, Milind was among the top three rankers from Std I itself.”Sumitra (70), Milind’s mother, said he was always self-dependent. “He would wash his own socks and shoes, clean his room and wash his tiffin box since he was three,” she said.Today, Milind has travelled across 140 countries for work, but he makes it a point to come down to Thane and spend some time with his parents. “I was born and brought up here. I have a strong connection with the city. It has its own culture, passion, a sense of family and togetherness essential for each individual’s development. This is something you just cannot get abroad,” he said.