When Ajit Nedungadi ’92 showed up in New Haven to start his first year at Yale College after flying halfway around the world from India, he spent his first night sleeping on a bare mattress.
“I didn’t realize I needed to get sheets or pillows,” Nedungadi says. “But I was eighteen and had just left my home country for the first time in my life, so it just made it feel like even more of an adventure.”
When he’d applied to Yale, Nedungadi had no expectations of being accepted, let alone receiving a generous enough scholarship to enable him to afford to attend.
“In many ways, my experience of financial aid from Yale represented the best of America,” Nedungadi says. “The idea that a kid coming from the other side of the world could apply here and be given the opportunity to access this education purely based on merit…it’s the bedrock of what makes America such a phenomenal place.”
Along with purchasing some bedding, Nedungadi also quickly picked up a close-knit group of friends in his residential college, where his daughter lives now.
“It’s so special seeing her have so much fun and soak in everything at an institution that means so much to me,” he says. “She’s eating it all up. I’m so proud of her.”
He encouraged his daughter to take advantage of the full liberal arts curriculum Yale has to offer. When he was a student, he studied engineering and economics, which helped him develop rigorous analytic thinking. He wishes he had had time to take advantage of more of Yale’s offerings, remembering a course on China taught by beloved Yale instructor Jonathan Spence ’65 PhD and another on military history by Harold Selesky ’84 PhD.
“Yale was my entry portal into the United States during my time of cultural assimilation and helped me believe in the meritocratic model of the U.S. And, of course, I’ve benefited from the relationships I developed during my four years in New Haven,” Nedungadi says. “And the rigor of the academic experience set me up well for a career in private equity.”
He now runs private equity firm TA Associates from London, where he has worked for more than twenty years.
“I was so head down, laser-focused on my career for many years,” Nedungadi says. “But recently, I’ve been able to lift my head up and start to think about how I want to give back.”
This desire to give back has resulted in new involvements with Yale: chairing his class’s 20th and 25th Reunion Gift Committees, interviewing prospective students, and advising the Jackson School of Global Affairs.
It’s also led him to give back to the university by supporting the Jackson School and endowing a scholarship for Yale College students, with a preference for international students from India. Since its founding in 2014, Nedungadi’s scholarship fund has so far supported four students during their undergraduate years.
“As a kid from India with no connection to the United States, it was incredible for me to be given the opportunities Yale afforded me,” Nedungadi says. “My scholarship to Yale opened up an entire world and life that was just not available otherwise. Of the folks who get that shot, I felt like those of us who are blessed enough to be able to give back materially should pay it forward. If I can afford to help create opportunities for more students to access a Yale education, it’s a no-brainer.”