Overview

Gender

male

Dinesh Paliwal has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Harman International (NYSE:HAR) since July 1, 2007, and was also appointed Chairman on July 1, 2008. He instituted major change initiatives at HARMAN to simplify and strengthen the company’s operations. These include the formation of a diverse and multi‐cultural board, recruitment of a seasoned executive management team, expansion of the company’s footprint and revenue in the emerging markets, propelling HARMAN’s innovation pipeline dramatically. To put the company on a profitable growth trajectory, he transformed the company culture and launched best in class business processes which delivered an unprecedented $450 million in sustained cost savings. Dinesh has worked and lived in six countries on four continents, including the United States, China, Switzerland, Singapore, Australia, and India.

Prior to joining Harman, he spent 22 years with ABB Group (NYSE:ABB, a $40 billion global industrial leader), where he last held the dual role of President of ABB Group with responsibility for the company’s global P&L, and Chairman/CEO - ABB North America. He drove profitable growth by eliminating the cultural and organizational silos among multiple P&L operations globally and turned the multi-billion North American operation profitable following 18 years of losses.

He moved to Beijing, China in 1994 to establish ABB’s operations in China and North Asia, where he subsequently grew the region’s business ten‐fold in four years. He was then asked to relocate to the company’s headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland to turn around and grow its large global industrial automation business. He was the youngest and the first Asian ever to join the ABB Group Management Board in 2001. During the historic turnaround of ABB beginning in 2002, the company’s Board selected him to run the global Automation division, representing more than half of ABB sales, reporting directly to the Chairman. As President of this division, Dinesh posted 14 consecutive quarters of top‐line and earnings growth.

Dinesh earned a Masters degree in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Roorkee). He also earned a Masters degree in Applied Science and Engineering (1983) and went on to earn a Masters degree in Business Administration (1985), both from Miami University (Ohio).

In addition to the Harman Board, Dinesh serves on the Board of Directors for The ADT Corporation (NYSE: ADT), the leader of electronic security, interactive home and business automation and alarm monitoring services, as well as the board of Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY), a global $17 billion biopharmaceutical company.

He also serves on the board of National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC and the Business Advisory Council of Farmer School of Business, Miami University.

Dinesh served on Embarq board, now Century Link Telecom.

He served as Chairman of ABB India Ltd. (a publicly-listed company with a multi-billion-dollar market capitalization).

He is a member of the CEO Business Roundtable in Washington, DC. He has served as Chairman of the US National Foreign Trade Council; as a member of the board for the US China Business Council, US India Business Council and International Swimming Hall of Fame.

He also served for three years as Economic Advisor to the Governor of Guangdong Province, China. In 2010, E&Y named Paliwal ‘Entrepreneur of the Year' for New York region, and Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) honored him with ‘Indian American Achiever’ Award. In 2011, American India Foundation (AIF) honored Paliwal for ‘Corporate Leadership’. In 2012, he was inducted in the International Honor Society Beta Gamma Sigma and the Asian American Business Development Center presented him with the ‘Pinnacle Award.