Some people see problems. Ritvik sees things that could work better.
Ritvik has always seemed slightly suspicious of the phrase “that’s how it’s done.”
It may explain the rather interesting route his career has taken. He trained as a lawyer at the National Law School in Bangalore, spent time practising corporate law in Mumbai, and then, in 2007, chose the entrepreneurship path. Since then, he has built businesses, backed ideas, advised leaders and generally occupied the rather useful territory between knowing how things work and wondering why they work that way in the first place.
Today, much of his time is spent thinking about the legal and governance professions its people, its technology, its businesses and its future. But ask Ritvik about any of those things and the conversation is unlikely to remain neatly inside the lines. He is as interested in how a team functions as he is in the technology it uses; as curious about talent as he is about strategy; and just as willing to question a business model as he is a workflow.
There is a particular kind of entrepreneur who loves the idea. Ritvik appears to prefer the part that comes afterwards: the messy, unglamorous business of making the idea work. People who have worked with him talk about his generosity almost as much as his intellect. He gives time freely, shares what he knows and has little apparent interest in making expertise feel exclusive. His instinct, rather naturally, is to help.
Perhaps that is also why he co-authored (along with Pramod Rao and Balanand Menon) a book (In-House Matters) for the modern General Counsel. It’s a book packed with frameworks and hard won insider secrets that consulting firms usually charge an arm and a leg for.
There is a serious side to all of this, of course. His work with Vahura and Counselect keeps him close to some of the most consequential questions facing legal teams and businesses today. He has also spent years mentoring, advising and supporting initiatives around innovation, leadership and gender equity.
But colleagues tend to remember something less corporate: the humour, the good nature, the willingness to stay with a problem long after everyone else has gone home.
Ritvik is, at heart, a builder. Not of businesses alone, but of possibilities. And he seems to have very little patience for the idea that the future should resemble the past simply because the past was easier to explain.
Ritvik is a contributing author to Clause.