Mahesh Yadav

Founder & CEO Optima Global Solutions Inc.

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Mahesh Yadav founded Optima Global Solutions in 2001 as a boutique IT staffing firm in New Jersey and has spent twenty-five years widening it into a general IT consulting business, most recently into cybersecurity and artificial intelligence services. The trajectory is a familiar one in IT services but rarely sustained this long by the same founder: from placing contractors, to building custom software, to advising on strategy. He came to it after a decade and a half inside the Indian IT services industry’s expansion into the United States, first selling for Patni Computer Systems, then helping stand up Hexaware Technologies’ US operations, then running global sales and operations as chief operating officer of NovaSoft. Optima was named to the Inc. 5000 for a fourth time in 2026.

Career Highlights

• Founder and chief executive of Optima Global Solutions, Hamilton, New Jersey, since 2001.
• Ranked No. 4,525 on the 2026 Inc. 5000 — the firm’s fourth listing and second consecutive year, based on revenue growth from 2022 to 2025.
• One of 147 New Jersey companies on the 2026 list and one of nine from the Princeton-Hamilton area.
• Expanded the practice from IT staffing into custom solutions development, and in 2026 into cybersecurity and AI services.
• Chief operating officer of NovaSoft Information Technology Corp, with responsibility for global sales and operations.
• Assistant vice president at Hexaware Technologies, Inc., where he was part of the team that established the company’s US operations.
• Advisory board member, School of Business at Montclair State University; board member, TechUnited NJ.

Professional Journey

Yadav’s career began in sales at Patni Computer Systems, one of the first generation of Indian IT services exporters, which later became iGate Patni and was ultimately acquired by Capgemini. Selling offshore delivery into American enterprises in that era meant selling an unfamiliar model as much as a service, and it put him at the commercial edge of an industry that was still establishing itself in the US market.

He moved to Hexaware Technologies as an assistant vice president, joining the group that built out the company’s United States operations — a step from selling within an established structure to creating one. From there he became chief operating officer of NovaSoft Information Technology Corp, taking responsibility for global sales and operations, and with it his first role running a business end to end rather than a function within one.

Optima Global Solutions followed in 2001. It started narrow, as a boutique IT staffing firm, and the twenty-five years since have been a steady broadening of what the firm sells: staffing first, then custom solutions development, and by 2026 cybersecurity and artificial intelligence practices. Yadav has framed that last expansion as a response to clients wanting a partner on strategy and execution rather than another technology vendor. The Inc. 5000 listings — four in total, the most recent at No. 4,525 in 2026 on growth measured from 2022 to 2025 — track the same period of broadening.

Alongside the company he has taken on roles in New Jersey’s technology community, serving on the board of TechUnited NJ, the state’s technology trade body formerly known as the New Jersey Technology Council, and on the advisory board of the School of Business at Montclair State University. He also invests personally in early-stage and growth-stage US technology companies.

Education

Bombay University

Bachelor’s, Mechanical Engineering