Rakesh K Kaul, whose family hails from Kashmir, migrated to the US in 1972 after becoming a gold medalist at IIT Delhi. During that year he won a national writing competition organized by a leading American newspaper. In addition to a distinguished business career he has written extensively for leading newspapers and magazines and been a keynote speaker on the history, politics and culture of Kashmir. He has served as the Co-Chairman of The Arts of Kashmir Exhibition at the Asia Society in New York. He was a founding contributor to the first Chair of India Studies at Berkeley and to the Center for the Advanced Study of India at University of Pennsylvania as also the Mattoo Center for India Studies at State University of New York. He has an MBA from the University of Chicago and an MS from Brown University.