Shiv Thakur

There are founders who build companies because they saw a market opportunity. And then there are founders who build companies because they lived the problem.

Shiv Thakur is the second kind.

His story does not begin in a boardroom or a business school classroom. It begins on a farm in Nepal, where there was no electricity, where his father worked the land at sunrise, where a young boy carried water from a well every morning before school and studied by moonlight every night — because he believed, with everything he had, that the next level was possible if he was willing to earn it.

That belief has never left him. It is the foundation of everything he has built. And it is the reason NXT Financial Group exists.

The journey to America

At 19 years old, Shiv won a United States diversity lottery visa. He said goodbye to his family in Nepal and traveled to Massachusetts alone — no money, no network, no English. He stayed with a distant family friend while he searched for work, eventually finding a job as a cashier at a local gas station.

It was not glamorous. But Shiv has never been someone who waits for the perfect circumstances. He opened a bank account. He enrolled in school. He kept going.

"I thought I was never going to find a job or end up going to college. I kept trying and my host family kept helping. It was hard. But in the beginning, everything is hard."

Education built on sacrifice

Shiv enrolled at Bristol Community College in Fall River, Massachusetts in September 2015 — taking ESL and college-level science and mathematics simultaneously, working two part-time jobs, and sending every dollar he could back to his family in Nepal.

He did not coast. He led. He became a teacher assistant, a tutor in mathematics and science, a student senator, a student ambassador and Vice President of both the Multicultural Club and the Asian Student Association. He volunteered with the Greater Boston Mobile Food Bank. He gave more than 100 hours of civic service — earning the President's Volunteer Service Award in recognition.

The academic honors followed. Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. Commonwealth Honors program. The Sceptre & Scroll Award. Nominated to the All USA Academic Team of 2018. Selected as a semifinalist for the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship — one of the most competitive academic awards in the country.

And in 2018, the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education named him one of its 29 Who Shine — a statewide distinction recognizing community college students of exceptional achievement and character.

He graduated with an Associate's degree in Engineering Science in May 2018. Then he transferred to Northeastern University.

At Northeastern, Shiv earned both a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering with a Minor in Entrepreneurship and a Master of Science in Engineering and Industrial Management — simultaneously — graduating in August 2021 with a 3.94 GPA while working 34 hours every weekend and continuing to send money home. He later completed Project Management training at Harvard University and earned his Project Management Professional certification — PMP.

A career that commanded respect

What followed was a decade of professional excellence that few engineers achieve in twice the time.

Shiv began in biochemical analytics at Momenta Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, applying scientific precision to complex research challenges. He moved into commissioning, qualification and validation engineering at DPS Group Global in Framingham — the kind of work that demands both technical mastery and meticulous process discipline. He built further expertise as a Process Engineer at bioX in New Hampshire.

Then came Amgen — one of the world's most respected biotechnology companies. As Senior Process Engineer in Cambridge, Shiv spent more than two years solving high-stakes manufacturing challenges for one of the most demanding organizations in the life sciences industry.

In parallel, he served as Managing Partner of Summit Global Consulting, advising businesses on strategy and operations. He earned AWS cloud certifications and a Graduate Certificate in Engineering Business. He became, by every measure, a highly credentialed, deeply experienced technical leader — the kind of professional other engineers look to for guidance.

He had built the career that young boy in Nepal had studied under the moonlight to reach.

And then he walked away from it. On purpose.

The decision that changed everything

Even as his career advanced, Shiv kept seeing the same gap. He saw it in his own life — he had once saved $1,500 a month on a $2,500 salary, and somehow lost that discipline as he earned more. Nobody had ever taught him how to protect what he was building. No one had ever sat across from him and explained — clearly, honestly, without an agenda — what life insurance was, why it mattered and how to use it.

He saw the same gap in every immigrant community around him. In every first-generation family earning real income with no financial protection in place. In every hardworking person who had never had someone in their corner who truly understood what was at stake.

The engineer in Shiv saw a broken system. The entrepreneur in Shiv saw a way to fix it. And the person who had come to America with nothing — who knew exactly what it felt like to have no safety net — could not look away.

NXT Financial Group

Shiv founded NXT Financial Group in September 2026. Not as a career pivot. As a calling.

At NXT, advisors own their future — no quotas, no pressure, no ceiling. Families receive honest, education-first guidance on the protection products that actually fit their lives. And communities that have historically been overlooked finally have an organization built specifically to serve them.

People ask Shiv all the time what NXT means. He always gives the same answer.

Next Generation — for the first-generation families and advisors who were told the ladder was not built for them.

Next Opportunity — for every person willing to bet on themselves and do the work.

Next Level — because growth does not stop. Not for the advisors at NXT. Not for the families they protect. Not for this company.

The same mission, a bigger platform

Alongside NXT, Shiv launched FutureFlow — a personal finance platform built to deliver the financial education he never received growing up. Because he has always believed that financial literacy is not a luxury. It is what changes the entire trajectory of a family.

Protecting Families. Building Careers. Leaving Legacies. That is not a tagline. It is the story of Shiv Thakur's life — lived in full, one next level at a time.

Shiv Thakur, MS, PMP is the Founder and CEO of NXT Financial Group and FutureFlow. He holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science from Northeastern University, Project Management training from Harvard University, and is a certified Project Management Professional. He is based in Malden, Massachusetts.