Strategy Leader Harsh Garg on Financial Discipline, Entrepreneurship, and Saving for the Worst-Case Scenario

Harsh Garg is a busy man. By day, he serves as vice president of strategy and mergers and acquisitions at Ralliant, a publicly listed industrial technology company headquartered in North Carolina, where he determines capital investments and business growth. Simultaneously, he is co-founder of Golchi, the travel-bottle start-up that raised over $400,000 from 5,000 backers on Kickstarter. In his spare time, he acts as a strategic mentor at Founder Mode Bootcamp, a 12-week accelerator programme helping youngsters aged 13 to 20 to launch and fund companies. The Delhi-born engineer spent 12 years in the US before relocating to Dubai with his family in December 2024. Today, he earns around Dh2.5 million ($680,000) a year across his corporate salary and a diversified portfolio of US equities, bonds, gold, and real estate investments.

Reflecting on his childhood, Harsh Garg notes he was born into a middle-class family where money was always valued. His parents instilled discipline regarding how to use money to unlock convenience, upgrade skills, and continuously evolve. Education and skill-building eventually transformed their financial equation.

As a civil engineer by training from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT Kanpur), his first job out of college involved designing bridges and highways for six months, providing his first significant cash flow of close to $500 a month in India.

Though financial resources were limited early on, he learned to stay within his means and optimize spending. He emphasizes that money comes and goes, but skills and personality stay for life, driving his involvement with Founder Mode Bootcamp, which he runs with his wife Ankita.

Seeking a more strategic role in business growth led him to an MBA at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. His income now combines a stable corporate salary with diversified investments in stocks, bonds, gold, and passive real estate designed for long-term wealth creation and a safety net for potential entrepreneurship.

Describing himself as a saver for future needs like retirement and children's education, he also values investments that buy time and convenience. His best investments include recurring allocations in the US equity market and a Louis Vuitton bag purchased for his wife last year.

Offering advice to his younger self, he highlights three principles: let money be an outcome rather than a driver, try entrepreneurship at least once, and always save for the worst possible day. For luxuries, he prioritizes experiences, family time, and holidays over materialistic pleasures.