ABOUT DEEPAK
Builder. CXO. Advisor.
I am Deepak Hariharan, an Advisor for Profitable Scale.
Over nearly two decades, I have grown across management consulting, entrepreneurship and senior operating roles - building new ventures, scaling businesses rapidly and helping institutions evolve into profitable unicorns.
I now bring that experience to CEOs navigating the difficult intersection of growth, profitability and organizational scale.
The journey so far
Consulting: I began my career in management consulting after studying at IIM Calcutta. Consulting taught me to structure unfamiliar problems, work across industries, see patterns, isolate the real underlying business question from the visible issues and deliver solutions that work.
Founder: I then became a founder. Building MentorYes from the ground up gave me direct experience of uncertainty, proposition design, early customer discovery, marketplace trust and the personal responsibility that comes with 0→1 execution.
CXO & Leader: At Zomato, Tata 1mg and LEAD Group, the scale and complexity changed. The work moved from proving an idea to expanding markets, strengthening economics, building systems, allocating resources and leading large teams through demanding growth journeys.
Each stage required a different kind of leadership. What works at 0→1 rarely survives unchanged at 1→10; and what creates rapid growth at 1→10 can become the constraint at 10→100.
Now Advisor: My advisory practice is the natural continuation of that journey: bringing cross-stage operating experience and independent judgment to leadership teams facing their next important inflection point.
Select highlights
10x growth in 24 months
50% reduction in CAC in 12 months
40% higher retention in one cycle
EBITDA positive transformation
140% GMV growth while improving unit economics
What I bring
Cross-stage pattern recognition
I have experienced venture creation, rapid expansion and institutional scale. That makes it easier to recognize when a business is not scaling right for its life-stage.
An operator’s experience with outcomes
I have worked inside the consequences of decisions - targets, economics, customers, teams and execution - not merely strategized from outside. That keeps the conversation grounded in what can actually work and deliver.
Understanding of the leadership role
As a founder and CXO, I understand the ambiguity and conflicts leaders face: incomplete information, competing priorities, limited resources and the responsibility of making decisions when it matters. My understanding of leadership complexities and challenges is real and lived through.
Patterns, but not generic
Working across sectors and business models creates useful comparisons, but every diagnosis must still begin with the specific company, context and stage. Pattern recognition should sharpen the questions—not replace judgment.
How I work
I work best in direct, thoughtful relationships with CEOs and leadership teams.
I listen before forming a view, ask the questions that help clarify the real issue, and prefer depth on a few important priorities over activity across a long list. I am comfortable challenging an assumption, but the objective is never provocation for its own sake. It is better judgment and stronger action.
I stay close enough to understand whether the strategy is surviving contact with reality, without taking over the leadership team’s role. The company owns execution. I help create clarity, sharpen decisions, review progress and support course correction.
My Principles
1 - Diagnose before prescribing
2 - Focus on the few decisions that matter
3 - Stay close without taking over
4 - Be direct, calm and evidence-led
Outside work
On a personal note, I remain an enthusiastic lifelong learner.
I am currently learning to play the guitar and tennis, and returning to long-distance running after a decade-long break.
I live in Delhi with my family.