Avinash Kaul is the author of The Next Mountain: Notes on Resilience, Leadership and Purpose (HarperCollins, 2026), written with Priya Kumar. Forced to leave Kashmir at seventeen, in January 1990, he studied in a makeshift school in tents, earned an engineering degree and an MBA, and spent 28 years in Indian media, 16 of them as a CEO. He was most recently CEO of Network18 (Broadcast & Publishing), and earlier CEO of Times Television Network. The Next Mountain reached No. 1 on Amazon.in in six categories at its launch in July 2026 and went into reprint in 10 days. He lives in Mumbai.