Startup Founder Returns To Bengaluru After 12 Years In US, Says Work Barely Changed

After spending 12 years in the United States, former UNICEF executive Gautam Narasimhan has moved back to Bengaluru and reflected on how his professional life has changed little despite the shift from New York. He said that while life in the two cities feels very different, his international work remains largely the same.

Narasimhan served as a Senior Adviser at UNICEF for more than seven years. In January 2026, he launched his own startup, Verdera, which is building an operating system for climate adaptation.

In a LinkedIn post shared two days ago, Narasimhan said the move back to Bengaluru was driven by a mix of family, personal, and professional reasons.

He revealed that they moved back to Bangalore last month after more than 12 years in New York.

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He said his professional life has changed very little, as his work is global and can be done from almost anywhere.

He said that while Bengaluru feels like a totally different world, things, especially work, have stayed remarkably the same, with him working with team members in Europe to deliver work in the US, Africa and Asia.

Narasimhan added that the work itself has been pretty portable, with the biggest difference being which calls he now does earlier in the morning or later in the evening.

He also reflected on how conversations around climate differ between New York and Bengaluru. He said discussions on climate were commonplace in New York, while he is now spending more time with people for whom "climate adaptation and resilience" is not part of their everyday vocabulary.

However, Narasimhan said people in Bengaluru have first-hand experiences of the problems described by those terms. He said that when people talk about making sure organisations can keep functioning as floods, storms, and heatwaves become less predictable and hit harder, many people have a story to tell.

Narasimhan used Bengaluru's rains and traffic as real-world examples of the need for adaptation. He said the rains disrupt already difficult traffic conditions and that conversations about how to respond to them receive genuine engagement.

He said Bangalore has been a good teacher on this, adding that the monsoon rains have arrived but are behaving strangely this year. He also said the rain makes the already horrific traffic even slower, while conversations about how to respond to it receive a lot of genuine engagement.