Can an Entrepreneur be Successful at a Big Company? An Interview with Amol Dixit

Amol Dixit calls himself a company guy and an entrepreneur. Amol heads up G-works, or General Mills’ startup incubator, and talks to us about being an entrepreneur inside a major corporation.

Show Notes
Guest Profile

Amol Dixit is used to living in two different worlds. For one, he calls himself a company guy and an entrepreneur. Amol heads up G-works, or General Mills’ startup incubator, which creates companies that will eventually be spun back into General Mills. The team is made up of what General Mills calls “corporate entrepreneurs,” which sounds like a contradiction in terms. But Amol insists it’s not. He should know. He’s worked at the consumer packaged goods giant for 15 years. But in the middle of that time, he was laid off, and instead of going to another big company, Amol decided to follow his dream of democratizing Indian food by launching a food truck. That dream is rooted in his own personal story - which again…begins with Amol living in two worlds.

Amol Dixit

Amol is the Director of G-Works, General Mills’ corporate venture studio. In this role, he is responsible for building and managing a portfolio of internal startups that are adjacent and transformational to the current General Mills portfolio and are staffed by dedicated founder teams. In his 16+ years at General Mills, Amol has worked in Marketing, Corporate Strategy, Corporate Venture Capital, and G-Works.

He is also Founder/CEO of Hot Indian, a fast-casual Indian restaurant chain which serves up sexy food for sexy people! Hot Indian has 3 restaurants in the Twin Cities, a cart in Target Field (Minnesota Twins) and a stand in the Minnesota State Fair.

Amol is a Mentor for Techstars’ Farm to Fork Accelerator, Lunar Startups, and Grow North. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Children’s Theatre Company, and Meet Minneapolis. Amol has received a Diversity in Business Award from the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal and was named a ‘Person to Know’ in 2018 by Twin Cities Business Magazine.

Amol went to Penn for undergrad and to Kellogg for his MBA. He now lives in Minneapolis with his hot Indian wife (Pallavi) and two kids (Raina and Deccan) and is a die-hard fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers (he’s originally from there) and 80's music.