Madan Birla is a veteran of the “hard” side of business. In his 22 years at FedEx, he was Managing Director of Long-Range Operations and Facilities Planning and Materials and Resource Planning before being named Managing Director in the company’s Leadership Institute. For eight years as a member of the Long Range Planning Committee he worked closely with Fred Smith (Founder & CEO) and the senior management team in evaluating strategic ‘what-ifs’. For the last five years he has been advising executives on how to unleash employee creativity and commitment to build a culture of innovation and performance.  

He completed his undergraduate work in Mechanical Engineering at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, India. Following that he enrolled at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago, IL, where he received his Master of Science degree in Industrial Engineering.After graduating from IIT, he joined RCA Records in Indianapolis. While in Indianapolis he did graduate work in Business at Butler University. After moving to Memphis to join FedEx, he received a Master of Science degree in Counseling from the University of Memphis.

He is author of FedEx Delivers: How the World’s Leading Shipping Company Keeps Innovating and Outperforming the Competition, published by John Wiley & Sons. This book has been translated into Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Korean and Thai.

He is a regular speaker in Executive Education programs at Kellogg Management Institute, Northwestern, Tuck Business School, Dartmouth, University of North Carolina, American Management Association, The Conference Board, and professional meetings including Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) Global Human Resource Forums, Tennessee Leadership conference and Leadership Academy, Illinois Institute of Technology, Columbia, Fordham, Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore, Indian School of Business, Singapore Institute of Management, and others.

He is actively involved in volunteer work for giving back to the community. He led the effort to establish the Indian Community Fund for Greater Memphis that funded the permanent exhibits including the Gandhi exhibit at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis and ‘Windows to the World’ an interactive educational exhibit at the Children’s Museum of Memphis. He developed long range plans for the Church Health Center (serving working poor), Friends for Life (serving HIV/AIDS affected population), the Tipton Commission on Aging (serving seniors) and Shelby County Schools Education Foundation. He lives with his wife Shashi in Collierville, TN and has two grown children who live in New York and Chicago.