Meet Shiv Kumar — Founder, Lead Trainer & Executive Coach

Shiv Kumar's path into corporate training wasn't a straight line — and that's exactly what makes his programs different.

Born and raised in India, educated in Russia and Australia, and based in China for over two decades, Shiv brings a perspective that most trainers simply cannot offer. He hasn't studied cross-cultural business from a distance. He has lived it — navigating boardrooms in Beijing, training delegates in Bangalore, coaching executives in Shenzhen, and building relationships across languages, time zones, and deeply different business cultures.

Shiv started his career in China in 2004 as a Business Communications Lecturer at North East Petroleum University in Daqing. From the classroom, he moved into the corporate world, spending nearly seven years as a Global Leadership Trainer with Berlitz Beijing, where he delivered communication, leadership, and cross-cultural programs for multinational hospitality and corporate clients.

From there, his career deepened through partnerships with some of the world's most respected learning organizations. As an Associate Senior Consultant with FranklinCovey, he facilitated signature programs including The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People for clients like Volkswagen Beijing and Hilton Beijing. As a Principal Consultant with the NeuroLeadership Institute, he brought brain-based leadership coaching to organizations across India and South Asia. He also held a General Manager role at Foton Motors and spent six years as an Associate Senior Trainer with Intellect Associates.

In 2018, Shiv founded Rays Training & Consulting to bring all of this experience together under one roof — a consultancy where every program is built from scratch around the client's real challenges, delivered with energy and interactivity, and grounded in the kind of practical wisdom that only comes from decades of doing the work.

His facilitation style is direct, vivid, and laced with humor. Participants consistently describe his sessions as engaging and immediately applicable — a far cry from the passive, slide-heavy workshops they are used to. Whether he is coaching a CEO one-on-one or training a room of forty engineers on collaborating with their Indian counterparts, Shiv brings the same commitment: make the learning real, make it relevant, and make it last.