Prof. Rajat Nagpal

With over twenty years of professional experience, Rajat Nagpal has built a diverse and impactful career across advertising, film production, branding, entrepreneurship, and education. He has worked across sectors, including BFSI, FMCG, wellness, hospitality, lifestyle, education, agriculture, and media, crafting brand identities, campaigns, and communication strategies for organisations across India and internationally.

A serial entrepreneur since the age of seventeen, Rajat has co-founded multiple ventures spanning branding, digital solutions, pre-visualisation, film production, and creative networking platforms. Notable enterprises include India’s first pre-visualisation firm, The Circus, production houses such as The Circus Motion Pictures and Nagpal and Sinha Pvt. Ltd., and Creanara.com, an online platform aimed at uniting India’s creative workforce across 235 fields.

In 2016, he moved to Goa and co-founded Home of Ara, a strategic consultancy offering integrated solutions in business, branding, marketing, content, design, and experience. In 2020, he co-founded The Storiculture Company, a native-to-global media and content venture, and in 2024, became a co-founder of NISHTHA, an integrated solutions network focused on academia and policy-making in South Asia.

Alongside professional practice, Rajat has been teaching since 2007 as Visiting and Adjunct Faculty at premier institutions including NID Ahmedabad, MICA, MIT Pune, UID Ahmedabad, Symbiosis, and Sir J. J. School of Art. A two-time TEDx speaker, he continues to mentor students, professionals, and organizations through courses, workshops, and collaborative projects.

Rajat Nagpal is an alumnus of the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, where he received rigorous training in design thinking, visual communication, storytelling, and interdisciplinary problem-solving. His education at NID laid the groundwork for his polymathic approach, enabling him to integrate design, film, business, and culture into a cohesive professional practice.

In addition to formal design education, Rajat has pursued extensive self-directed learning across diverse domains, including filmmaking, culinary arts, naturopathy, and Ayurveda. Self-trained in holistic wellness practices, he has been designing personalised diet and wellness regimens for individuals with chronic and critical health conditions since 2016. His learning journey reflects a lifelong commitment to curiosity, experimentation, and cross-disciplinary synthesis.

Nagpal graduated from the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, in Communication Design, laying the groundwork for his visual and narrative expertise. He pursued 2nd-year Cambridge certification in Hawaiian Guitar, enhancing his musical composition for TVCs and shorts. Self-taught in Naturopathy and Ayurveda, he applies these to wellness coaching. Additional experiences include a two-week Design Aptitude workshop at Bhowanipore College, Kolkata (1999), underscoring his early mentorship role. These foundations, combined with hands-on mastery across film, design, and entrepreneurship, define his non-traditional yet profound educational ethos.

• Communication Design
• Filmmaking
• Production Design
• Advertising
• Brand Storytelling
• Experience Design
• Entrepreneurship
• Narrative Strategy

Rajat Nagpal’s work has been widely recognised with numerous national and international awards. His honours include the Satyajit Ray Gold Award at the Kshanik Film Festival, IDPA Gold and Silver awards for brand films, Promax Silver, and a National Award in Printing. In 2006, he was selected among the Top 12 video artists under thirty globally at the Cityzooms International Film Festival in Hannover.

His films have been screened at leading festivals such as the Berlin International Film Festival, Mumbai International Film Festival, South Asia Film Festival, Poitiers International Film Festival, Kyoto International Film Festival, and Filminute, among others. Beyond film, he has received recognition in culinary arts, including a Times Food Award for the best café in Goa for Artisan Backerei.

Through research-driven practice, interdisciplinary creation, and experiential storytelling, Rajat continues to contribute meaningfully to the evolving discourse on design, communication, and leadership in a rapidly changing world.