Harbir Singh Nat was born in Deolali, Maharashtra in 1966 where his father, Maj. Gen Harbans Singh, was, then, an instructor in the School of Artillery of the Indian Army. Harbir lived the life of an army child moving almost every three years as his family travelled with his father’s army postings. Harbir’sschooling was done across Ambala, Jabalpur, Pune and Delhi where he completed his 12th Standard.
Harbir was selected as a National Talent Scholar in 1982 and passed out of Army Public School, Dhaula Kuan in 1984 as the valedictorian of his year. He joined St. Stephens College to study Physics Honours but after a year moved to Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, after achieving an All India Rank of 177 in the Joint Entrance Examination, to study B.Tech in Electrical Engineering. He completed his B. Tech in 1989 and was selected to join Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIMC), where he completed in Post Graduate Diploma in Management in 1991 specialising in Finance.
After IIMC, Harbir joined India’s then leading investment bank SBI Capital Markets Ltd. in Mumbai. He then moved to ABN AMRO Bank, a leading European bank, to set up its Telecom Financing business in India.
He had a long career with ABN AMRO Bank which posted him to Singapore, then Amsterdam and then London in its Telecoms, Media and Technology (TMT) team. In his 16-year career with ABN AMRO Bank, Harbir completed nearly $20 billion of telecom financing deals as a lead manager, including landmark deals for Maxis in Malaysia, Hutchison Whampoa in Hong Kong, Smart Telecom in Philippines, Turk Telecom and Avea Telecom in Turkey, Casema in the Netherlands.
Harbir left ABN AMRO in 2009 to become CEO of a mobile operator in Portugal. In 2012 he joined the International Finance Corporation, a division of the World Bank as its Principal Investment Officer for Telecoms in Africa. He was posted to Washington DC and Nairobi and invested in leading African telecom and technology companies such as Teraco Data Centres and Helios Towers. He was on the Board of Directors of Helios Towers.
Harbir left IFC / World Bank in 2016 and in 2017, he co-founded PAIX Data Centres (“PAIX”), which he led as Deputy CEO and CFO from a concept to a 50-person, multi-national company. PAIX secured an investment of $40 million for Africa50, a leading multi-national development investor in 2022. Harbirexited from PAIX as a part of that fund raise and has then started two technology companies Tekk.ai Ltd and Connqt.ai Ltd.
Tekk.ai Ltd is building a portfolio of SaaS products and has launched two brands already. Connqt.ai develops software tools for small businesses to use WhatsApp in their business. Both Tekk.ai and Connqt.ai are developing AI products for businesses in their portfolio.
Harbir is married to Anindita Singh Nat. They met in IIMC where they were in the same MBA class in 1989. They have two sons Karanvir Singh Nat and Adityavir Singh Nat. Karanvir is a software engineer and Adityavir is a marketing manager for a healthcare company.
Harbir’s hobbies are writing, walking and cooking.
