To succeed in business, not only do you have to work with integrity and passion, but you have to listen to people.”
— Jawahar Chaudhary
Jawahar Chaudhary, PE
Founder & Chairman Emeritus
With more than 45 years of industry experience, NIKA founder and Chairman Jawahar Chaudhary is widely known as an engineering expert within the firm and beyond. A thoughtful, hands-on leader, he extolls the virtue of resourcefulness and has passed that characteristic down to his son, Kabir, NIKA’s President and CEO.
After establishing NIKA in 1998 as a certified minority-owned business, Jawahar began steadily growing the firm. Under his leadership, the company has quadrupled in size, and rebranded to better reflect its market, specialty, and service offering. Today, he is primarily responsible for day-to-day interactions on NIKA’s more challenging engineering designs.
Prior to founding NIKA, Jawahar spent more than 15 years with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, where he specialized in mechanical engineering design and project management for healthcare facilities. The years he spent in management of these projects helped him understand the intricacies of government contracting. He learned about the people, projects, lawyers, contractors, and the overall management of a project starting from beginning negotiations through the design and construction phases.
Jawahar was born, raised, and schooled in India. After moving to the U.S., he earned his master’s degree in heat transfer at George Washington University and has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. He is a life-long member of ASHRAE, and he enjoys reading and spending time with family in his free time.
