- [About This Paper] About TheNCTimes: Why A Consultant Chose A Newspaper
The format, the reasoning, and what to expect on the pages that follow.
A portfolio is, structurally, an advertisement. A newspaper is, structurally, an argument that something happened and is worth your attention. Nikhil Chandra wanted the second…
- [Editor's Note] A Note From The Editor's Desk
A short, honest word on why this portfolio exists at all — and what it owes to every actual newspaper sitting, unread, on a desk somewhere this morning.
- [Reach Out] Get In Touch: How To Reach Nikhil Chandra
TheNCTimes takes letters. New consulting enquiries, speaking invitations and the occasional correction are all welcome — the fastest route is email, listed in the classifieds…
- [Founding Story] TheNCTimes Launches Today: A Consultant's Life Told In Print
A new kind of portfolio — built like a broadsheet, not a brochure.
Nikhil Chandra, the New Delhi-based growth consultant, today unveiled TheNCTimes — a personal portfolio that abandons the conventional scrolling website in favour of something…
- [Early Years] From Campus To Boardroom: The First Five Years
Long before TheNCTimes existed, Nikhil Chandra spent his first five working years moving between operations floors and client war-rooms, learning — slowly, then all at once — what…
- [Client Work] How A ₹40 Crore Mandate Became A Blueprint For Scaling Mid-Cap Firms
An eighteen-month mandate with a mid-cap manufacturer became the template Nikhil Chandra now reaches for first whenever a new client describes growth as the goal but cannot say,…
- [Recognition] National Business Excellence Award Goes To Nikhil Chandra
The honour cites "sustained, measurable impact across sectors not known for sharing a consultant" — language the awarding committee apparently did not intend as a joke, though…
- [Philosophy] Three Principles I Have Never Negotiated On
Across forty-odd engagements, Nikhil Chandra has held to three rules that, he says, have never once produced a bad outcome — even when they made the room uncomfortable.
- [Advisory At Scale] When Six Startups Called In One Month
A single April week brought six unrelated founders to Nikhil Chandra's inbox, each asking some version of the same question: how do we grow without breaking what already works?
- [Cross-Border Strategy] Singapore To Delhi: Lessons From A Cross-Border Engagement
A regional retailer's expansion into India needed more than a translated playbook — it needed one rebuilt from the ground up, starting with assumptions about supply chains that…
- [Mentorship] Twenty Mentees, One Framework: Building The Next Generation
Every January, Nikhil Chandra opens twenty seats in a year-long mentorship cohort for early-career consultants — unpaid, oversubscribed, and by his own account, the part of the…
- [Framework] The Growth Diagnostic: A Five-Step Method
Every engagement Nikhil Chandra takes on begins the same way: not with a strategy deck, but with a five-step diagnostic designed to surface the real constraint before anyone…
- [Case Study] Retail To Resilience: Turning Around A Legacy Brand
A forty-year-old retail name was three quarters from insolvency when Nikhil Chandra was brought in — not to rebrand it, as the board initially wanted, but to first establish…
- [Speaking] Keynote At The National Business Summit
Nikhil Chandra closed this year's Summit with a talk on what he calls "boring growth" — the unglamorous kind that compounds quietly instead of arriving as a headline.
- [Flagship Engagement] The Manufacturing Turnaround That Redefined A Decade-Old Firm
A family-run manufacturer was losing share quietly, for years, before anyone agreed to call it a crisis. By the time Nikhil Chandra was called in, the conversation had shifted…
- [Panel] On The Panel: The Future Of Work, Reframed
Nikhil Chandra joined three other panelists to argue that "future of work" conversations usually skip the only question that matters: future of work for whom?
- [Partnerships] Three New Sector Partnerships Announced This Quarter
Healthcare, logistics and D2C retail — three sectors Nikhil Chandra had deliberately avoided until this quarter, when all three arrived within the same fortnight.
- [Timeline] Five Years, Five Pivots: A Career Timeline
A short account of the five decisions that, in hindsight, mattered more than they felt like at the time.
- [Round-Up] Recognition Round-Up: Five Mentions Worth Noting
From a podcast feature to a quiet citation in an industry report — five mentions Nikhil Chandra didn't pitch for, and only found out about after the fact.