Executive Forum with Vivek Chakrabortty, Chief Executive Officer for The Kavi Group LLC

The Executive Forum is open to the public, as seating permits, and provides opportunities for the exchange of ideas and discussion of topics and issues facing business and management.

Vivek was born in Mumbai, India, in a Brahmin Hindu and Catholic household and grew up in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, a Muslim country. One grandfather was an Indian Freedom Fighter, and the other was in the British Navy. From a very young age, my parents instilled an empathetic, diverse way of thinking in Vivek and his brother. His love for travel and desire to know people with different backgrounds and life stories is rooted in his own diversity. 

You could say he has been a risk taker and entrepreneur his whole life. He grew up in the rigorous and structured CBSE Indian school system where you had to choose between science, commerce, or arts at the age of 16. He craved freedom and knew that a path in America would enable him to be whomever he wanted to be. He negotiated with his dad to attend high school and college in the US, and moved when he was just 16. His life forever changed. 

It was only by chance that he started to work in operations resilience before two major US events happened: 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. 

As a business continuity and crisis management consultant, he learned that businesses must be one step ahead of the threats faced by their clients whether they are natural disasters, civic unrest, terrorism, active shooters, cyber-security breaches, technology failures, or catastrophic accidents. 

He was the emergency preparedness advisor to the Louisiana Recovery Authority in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita and led the California Healthcare Surge Planning which was the first of its kind in the U.S. in terms of scale and scope. The teams he led on these two projects were awarded the Chairman’s Award, PwC’s highest recognition for outstanding client service. In the past 25 years, he has worked in the American South, Northeast, Midwest, Pacific Northwest, California, and Mid-Atlantic. His work has taken him to Europe, Australia, and Asia. 

These experiences as well as his understanding of culture and people prepared him to be an entrepreneur. In 2014, his wife Kathy and Vivek invested their life savings to start the Kavi Group, a management consulting firm that provides business continuity and crisis management advisory services. 

Today, Kavi Group is a 7-figure company with Fortune 100 companies as their clients. Kavi has helped our clients navigate the COVID19 pandemic, supply chain risks and disruptions, geo-political conflicts, climate-change associated threats, and adjust to the new normal of risk management.