Some people stumble into their calling. Navoch Mohanayak seems to have been born running toward his.
A professional Futurist, Growth Strategist, and writer with a restless curiosity about the world, Navoch's experience in enabling change and innovation spans a wide range of industries and geographies. But long before the titles and the boardrooms, there was simply a deeply curious mind — one that couldn't stop asking why, and more importantly, what's next.
A Career Built Across Worlds
Earlier in his career, Navoch served as a Senior Consultant in Strategy at Honeywell, working across diverse business segments — analysing businesses, crafting strategic roadmaps, and generating new ideas for incubation, including the identification and development of adjacent market spaces. It was here that the pattern emerged: Navoch doesn't just study a room — he imagines a better one.
From Honeywell, he moved into the dynamic world of media and storytelling as Strategy & Insights Head at Disney Star, contributing to media and internet initiatives. Working at the intersection of content, culture, and commerce in one of Asia's most electric media ecosystems, he developed a rare fluency — the ability to understand what people want before they know they want it.
That instinct for the future eventually found its fullest expression at Frost & Sullivan, where Navoch serves as Vice President of Growth Strategy & Implementation, crafting strategy-led business growth and continuity plans for large MNCs to SMEs across South Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. A Frost & Sullivan Certified Growth Coach, Navoch has spent nearly two decades advising leadership teams of world-class companies and exciting startups — and government agencies of multiple nations — helping them see around corners and act boldly on what they find there.
A Citizen of the World
Navoch's worldview has been shaped just as much by the roads he has travelled as the boardrooms he has occupied. From the temples and street markets of Asia to the business districts of Europe and the Middle East, he has made a habit of showing up in places, paying close attention, and bringing something home — not just a souvenir, but a perspective.
His educational journey reflects this global appetite: a B.Tech from the College of Engineering and Technology in Bhubaneswar, an MBA from Xavier Institute of Management, and Executive Certification in Strategic Marketing Management from Harvard Business School. Academia, industry, and lived experience — in Navoch's hands, these have never been separate things.
The Writer Who Was Always There
What distinguishes Navoch from most strategists isn't just the quality of his thinking — it's the warmth and wit with which he shares it. He is, at his core, a writer: someone who reaches for a story when others would reach for a slide deck.
His five published books reveal the full range of that voice.
Wander Yonder, his award-winning collection of poems, is perhaps the most personal of them — poignant and warm, it captures the emotional texture of a life spent in motion. These are poems written by someone who has actually stood in those places, felt those feelings, and had the rare courage to put them honestly into words.
The Somewhat Biased Guide to Odia Food is exactly as joyful as it sounds. Part love letter, part cultural excavation, it celebrates the food of Odisha with the affectionate irreverence of a native son who knows these flavours like a first language — and wants the rest of the world to fall as hard for them as he has.
With Strategy in Everyday Life: The Unofficial MBA of Being Human, Navoch does what few business thinkers dare: he brings the frameworks of the boardroom into the kitchen, the commute, and the complicated conversations we all navigate daily. It is clever, accessible, and quietly profound — a book that makes you feel smarter about being alive.
The Art of Unfluster: Staying Calm in Everyday Life reads like a conversation with a wise, unhurried friend. In an age of relentless noise, Navoch offers something genuinely useful — not platitudes, but practical, human wisdom about finding stillness amid the storm.
And Human Stories in Inhuman Times may be his most resonant work. Written with the eye of a strategist and the heart of a poet, it is a tribute to the extraordinary resilience of ordinary people — proof that Navoch is most himself when he is finding grace in the overlooked corners of the world.
What People Say
Those who have worked alongside Navoch reach for the same words again and again. "Creativity is his forte, and he employs it with aplomb, in the way he looks at problem statements as well as works out solutions. And never a dull moment." Another colleague simply says he was "always in demand — our clients' favourite consultant."
Readers say something similar. Whether he's writing about poems or pakoras, strategy or stillness, there is a quality to Navoch's work that is immediately recognisable: he is never showing off. He is always inviting you in.
Why BackerKit
Navoch comes to BackerKit not as a newcomer testing the waters, but as a writer with a body of work, a point of view earned across continents and careers, and a genuine belief in the power of community to bring good books into the world. Whatever he is working on next, you can be sure of this: it will be curious, it will be warm, and it will be worth your time.
