Hari S. Abhyankar serves as Executive Vice President and Global Head of Private Equity and Professional Services at Persistent Systems. In this role, Hari leads Persistent’s global strategy and growth across private equity investors, their portfolio companies and professional services organizations, working closely with clients to accelerate revenue growth, enable platform modernization and drive faster realization of transformation priorities across portfolios.
Hari brings more than 25 years of experience spanning management consulting, enterprise technology, go-to-market strategy and AI-led business transformation. He uniquely bridges strategic advisory with operational execution, having spent over a decade in C-suite consulting and more than 14 years as an operating executive with deep P&L ownership. His work has consistently turned AI, strategy and analytics into measurable commercial impact, driving step-change growth for enterprise technology, SaaS and services businesses.
Most recently, Hari advised and operated with AI-native startups transforming digital marketing, commerce and enterprise go-to-market execution, serving in fractional CRO and growth advisory roles focused on product strategy, GTM excellence, pipeline generation and fundraising.
Previously, Hari spent over a decade at McKinsey & Company, where he was elected Partner in 2020. He led technology sector engagements focused on product strategy, go-to-market transformation and commercial growth. His client work spanned enterprise software, cloud and SaaS migration, adtech and climate technology, delivering outcomes that included multi-billion-dollar pipeline creation, significant ARR growth and market cap expansion for leading technology companies.
Before McKinsey, Hari held senior leadership roles at Interpublic Group (IPG), where he served as EVP and Global Head of Media Analytics at Mediabrands, owning the P&L for the global analytics business unit supporting optimization of $18B+ in media spend, and as SVP of Digital Strategy at McCann, where he scaled the west coast Strategy & Analytics practice 10x in two years. Earlier in his career, he held progressive leadership roles at Digitas and began his career as a supply chain consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Hari holds a Ph.D. in Operations Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management, an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University and dual bachelor’s degrees in Mathematics and Economics (Honors) from Purdue University.
Hari enjoys strength training, cooking and practicing mindfulness. He lives in Burlingame, California with his wife Deepali. They have two daughters, one in college and the other working in the Bay Area.