Glenbrook North Distinguished Alumnus for 2019 Navin Thukkaram told students he didn’t receive an award when he attended GBN. “This is the first award I‘ve received from Glenbrook North,” he noted.
Thukkaram, a 1993 graduate of GBN and now a technology investor and entrepreneur, was honored at the GBN Honors and Awards Assembly on May 24. He also had some advice for students. “You don’t have to have everything figured out; you don’t need to know what you’ll do for the rest of your life.”
He recounted his path from GBN graduate to Princeton and Harvard, then Wall Street and investing. At GBN, he wanted to do well in school, earn a high GPA, and get into an elite university. He said GBN contributed to his love of technology and science and his interest in engineering. He took AP biology, chemistry, physics, and almost every other AP course at GBN. He took advantage of GBN’s ample science resources, which he credits with his early success. He participated in a science club and was on the math team, which placed ninth in the state while he was a member. He was also on the GBN golf team for four years and, during his senior year, captained the team to a 13-1 season.
When deciding his post-high school plans, he credits GBN athletics and his coaches’ high standards with committing to Division I golf at Princeton. He recounts how Coach LaVerne (Mac) McMillen was the most influential person to him at GBN and said he was a huge inspiration. He also noted that the studying techniques and the hard work ethic he picked up at GBN have never left him.
He majored in civil engineering and operations research at Princeton, then spent two years working on Wall Street and two years in private equity investing. He then attended Harvard Business School, graduating with a master’s degree in business. After Harvard, he was a senior associate of Vulcan Capital Management, a private equity firm, where he became a partner. In 2008, he started NT Capital Partners, his office for investing in startups. NT Capital Partners’ first investment was the startup Qwiki, a company awarded the 2010 TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, which labeled it the No. 1 startup that year.He became the chief operating officer of Qwiki in 2011, and in 2013, it was acquired by Yahoo! for $50 million.
He told of the many struggles, letting go of half of the staff and running out of money right before it was sold. “Each setback gets you on the right path,” he told students. “How you respond to failure will define you.” 

Thukkaram also served on the executive panel for the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, advising the Navy on tech issues, and serves on the Center for Strategic and International Studies advisory board. CSIS is the number one security defense think tank in Washington, DC, and he is the youngest board member in history. He is currently the lead investor and board member of Skykick, a cloud software company like Google Drive that helps move businesses to the cloud.
For the future, Thukkaram is focused on giving back, coaching, and advising companies. He has created two-day innovation boot camps and immersive workshops to teach businesses to evolve with ever-changing trends.