Shankar Maruwada is a rare leader whose three decades of experience span corporate, entrepreneurial, government, and development sectors, each of which has deepened his ability to design for digital transformation at scale, with ecosystems, and for societal value.
He began at Procter & Gamble, where he honed skills in brand marketing, consumer behaviour, and strategy. He then co-founded Marketics, India’s earliest successful data analytics startup, which was later sold to WNS. This phase shaped his entrepreneurial instincts for turning data into decisions and unlocking stakeholder value — an ability central to digital transformation.

He then joined the founding team at UIDAI, led by Nandan Nilekani, where he oversaw marketing and data analytics and coined the now-iconic name Aadhaar. His work helped build the world’s largest digital identity infrastructure, demonstrating how startup thinking can drive government-scale transformation.

Currently, he is Co-founder and CEO of EkStep Foundation, which he set up with Nandan and Rohini Nilekani. EkStep Foundation works on digital transformation for a billion, across sectors from Education to Agriculture, from Learning to Earning. EkStep works at the intersection of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), AI and open networks.

An alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and IIM Ahmedabad, what sets Shankar apart is his commitment and ability to build for billions with scalable public digital platforms that bridge sectors and stakeholders. His work brings startup agility to public problems—and shows how good design, open infrastructure, and ecosystem thinking can transform systems, not just fix symptoms.