When India’s small and medium enterprises talk about scale, execution, and survival, one name surfaces repeatedly: Suresh Mansharamani.
This year, CXO Magazine has named Suresh Mansharamani - CXO SME Coach of the Year 2025, recognising a career that spans more than four decades and mirrors the evolution of India’s own entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Born in a refugee camp in Ulhasnagar, Maharashtra, Mansharamani’s story is not shaped by privilege or early access to capital. His professional life began with a monthly salary of ₹300—an unremarkable start that would later contrast sharply with what followed. Through disciplined execution and an instinct for building scalable systems, he went on to create a company whose 1995 IPO was oversubscribed 300 times, an extraordinary feat in India’s capital markets at the time.
That milestone cemented his reputation not just as an entrepreneur, but as a business builder who understands scale from the inside out.
Over the years, Mansharamani has worn many hats: operator, investor, mentor, author, and speaker. He has written eight books, delivered three TEDx talks, and advised thousands of founders on sales, leadership, and sustainable growth. His style is pragmatic and direct—less theory, more execution—earning him credibility across India’s SME landscape.
His contributions have not gone unnoticed at the national level. Mansharamani is a recipient of a Certificate of Merit from the President of India, recognising his impact on entrepreneurship and business development.
Today, his focus is firmly on institution-building. As the co-founder of Tajurba, one of India’s fastest-growing MSME-focused platforms, he is attempting something unusually ambitious: to organise and professionalise India’s fragmented SME ecosystem at scale.
Tajurba’s mission is expansive—build a community of one crore MSMEs, mentor 500 SMEs toward successful listings on the SME exchange, and play a meaningful role in India’s broader $5 trillion economy ambition. It is less a startup vision and more a nation-building thesis rooted in small business growth.
In an economy where MSMEs account for employment, innovation, and resilience—but often lack structured guidance—Suresh Mansharamani’s work stands out for its long-term orientation. He is not chasing valuation headlines. He is building capability.
That, ultimately, is why CXO Magazine’s recognition resonates. In honoring Suresh Mansharamani, the award acknowledges a rare combination in Indian entrepreneurship: experience matched with execution, and scale guided by purpose.