Manoj lives in London with his wife, two sons, and three gorgeous Bengal cats.
He successfully leads a specialist, boutique consulting firm as Founder CEO, and Chairman. The firm is an international enterprise with over 125 people across the US, UK, UAE India & Japan. He is a results-oriented, strategic thinker and business leader with exceptional management skills. He has a coaching leadership style that develops trusted relationships. He has the ability and experience in consulting large enterprise CxOs and delivering results through business and technology transformation. Besides this, he has been actively involved in fostering and developing start-ups in the tech space and engaged with charitable organizations in the spirit of ‘giving back to society.
Manoj grew up in a big and closely knit joint family in Calcutta. At any given point, there would be 35-40 family members and 10-15 houseguests. Even though not very affluent, there was always a bed and food available for anyone who needed it, from travelers to politicians. The Harbhajanka household would always cater and plan for much larger groups when they came over for festivals around Calcutta such as Durga Pooja & Ganga Sagar Mela.
Children of this family grew up immersed in talks of trade and commerce and Manoj was no exception. He had always been a reflective child prone to asking his elders testing and soul-searching questions. Eventually, wanting to explore more, Manoj decided to join ISKCON at the ripe old age of 14 but was unceremoniously dragged back home by his family. Thereafter, Manoj focused on education while continuing to engage in spiritual discourse with anyone who would be willing: peers, teachers, gurus, and even priests for temples and churches.
For college, Manoj went to Pune and the next four years of engineering passed in a flash. This is where Manoj picked up the nickname ‘Max’ from the iconic Mad Max films because of his penchant for motorbikes. Cross country, dirt-track racing, and road rallies were his passion. This love for engines and speed has sustained over the years. Manoj is a qualified Advanced Rider in the UK, trained and tested by ex-police instructors. At some point, he would like to volunteer as a ‘blood runner’ which entails being available at very short notice to deliver life-critical blood or organs within London.
Manoj returned to join the family business after completing his engineering with a first-class degree and having worked for Kirloskar Oil Engines for a year as a management trainee. The family business entailed the import, manufacture, and distribution of high-pressure boilers and engineering steel tubes. In the next few years, he attempted to develop several businesses in export, import, manufacturing, and technology but the results were not to his satisfaction. Having spent 5 years under the umbrella of the family business, he decided to understand the corporate world a bit more and bring the learnings into his future endeavors.
Manoj changed his career track to business and technology consulting by developing new skills in enterprise applications such as SAP and Oracle. This allowed him to work as a consultant for large enterprises, thus his career developed as an SAP expert. He consulted for companies like Haldia Petrochemicals, Pricol, Dr. Reddy’s Lab, and L&T while in India. He got chosen for a project with Unilever and moved to Chester, the UK in the year 2000. A couple of years later, he was selected for Warwick Business School’s MBA program which he completed with distinction. This also landed him a new job with PwC in London. However, this was also a time of significant struggle. Work, study, fees, and raising a young family all together were never going to be easy. At PwC, Manoj was soon promoted to be a senior manager with significant responsibility and a large team to manage. He gained the trust of his seniors and partners and rapidly progressed through the hierarchy to be a leader of Financial Systems for PwC across Europe.
In 2011, Manoj moved to BP as the IT Strategy leader and developed several key strategies for BP. He also held the responsibility of managing the global long-term roadmap for BP’s technology landscape. However, this move to BP came at a rather low point in his life when he struggled with severe back issues before and after two spinal surgeries. This period was a constant battle with pain, day in and day out for almost three years. He started meditating again and attended several vipassana courses. Over the next few years, Manoj also decided to get back to his original idea of developing a consulting business. Consequently, in 2016, he left BP and started Acuiti Labs, a boutique consulting firm with three main strategic pillars; Employees First, Domain Focus and Always deliver business value, not technology. Acuiti Labs started life at a shared office within the Google Campus in London’s Silicon roundabout. Over the following 6 years, through blood, sweat, tears, and a lot of joy, Acuiti Labs has grown into a fledgling global business.
Sports have always been an important part of Manoj’s life. He is an avid golfer and motorbike enthusiast. He has represented his school in multiple sports and quiz contests over the years. Also, he is driven by ‘giving back to society and ensuring the wellbeing of everyone who works with him. This has taken many shapes and forms over the years: from his role as a voluntary Police officer in Kolkata, acting as a governor for a London school for autistic children, and chairing The Rajasthani Foundation in the UK, which supports multiple charities in India and supporting several cause-based charities through Acuiti Labs. He has also ensured that significant shares of his company are distributed within the organization to ensure growth for all individuals who are part of the success story at Acuiti Labs. However, all this pales in significance next to Manoj’s real journey which is to follow the path that was laid by Gautam Buddha. Deep routed neutrality governs his life. He strongly believes in the quote by Allan Locos – accepting the reality of change gives rise to equanimity. His reality is that besides the high-pressure job as a CEO he needs to ensure that he is developing spiritually and enriching the lives of people around them daily.