Ronnie Screwvala

Ronnie Screwvala
Screwvala in 2016
Born
Rohinton Soli Screwvala

(1956-09-08) 8 September 1956 (age 68)
Bombay, Bombay State, India
(present-day Mumbai, Maharashtra)
NationalityIndian
Occupations
Years active1981–present
Organization(s)UTV Group (now Walt Disney India)
Swades Foundation
Unilazer Ventures
AIESEC India
RSVP Movies
upGrad
Spouse(s)
Manjula Nanavati
​
(divorced)​

Zarina Mehta[1]
Children1
RelativesSuhail Chandhok (son-in-law)

Rohinton Soli Screwvala (born 8 September 1956), known professionally as Ronnie Screwvala, is an Indian entrepreneur, investor and film producer.[2][3]

He has been named on Esquire's List of the 75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century[4] in 2008 and ranked 78 among the 100 most influential people in the world on the Time 100 (compiled by Time Magazine, 2009).[5] He was also listed amongst 25 Asia's Most Powerful people by Fortune Magazine.[6]

Based in Mumbai, India, Ronnie pioneered cable television, built a media and entertainment conglomerate (UTV Software Communications) that partnered with News Corp, 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Company, and Bloomberg, and later in 2012, he divested the company to Disney for an enterprise value of US$1.4 billion.[7]

From 2013 onward, he and his wife scaled their non-profit, The Swades Foundation, whose goal is to work with a million people in rural India, empower them, and move them out of poverty every 6–7 years before moving onto another geography.[8]

He co-founded UpGrad, which is into online education in the higher education and specialization sector,[9] founded a sports company—U Sports—spanning football, e-sports, and kabaddi, and through his investment company, Unilazer Ventures, has been a significant private equity investor in Indian start-ups with early stage investment and significant minority stakes.[10][11] After his entrepreneurial period, he re-entered the media content industry to build a creative content company—RSVP—in movies and digital content[12] and authored a book titled Dream with Your Eyes Open.[13]

  1. ^ Ansari, Humaira (27 September 2010). "This Parsi cook's secret lies in her grandma's recipes". DNA India. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  2. ^ "Ronnie Screwvala - Creating Emerging Markets - Harvard Business School". www.hbs.edu. Retrieved 3 October 2024.
  3. ^ "Ronnie Screwvala | Speaker | ASU GSV Summit". www.asugsvsummit.com. Retrieved 3 October 2024.
  4. ^ "Tata, Ambani, Mittal among most influential of 21st century". The Economic Times. 18 September 2008. Retrieved 12 May 2018.
  5. ^ "Moot world's most influential; Sonia, Tata in top 100: Report". The Economic Times. 27 April 2009. Retrieved 12 May 2018.
  6. ^ Lall, Pawan (5 May 2011). "Bollywood's disruptor". Retrieved 12 May 2018.
  7. ^ Subramanian, Anusha (8 December 2011). "Behind Ronnie Screwvala's Rs 2,000-cr Walt Disney deal". Business Today. Retrieved 12 May 2018.
  8. ^ Garfinkel, Perry (30 December 2016). "After Building a Media Empire, What's Next? Lifting One Million From Poverty". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 May 2018.
  9. ^ Bansal, Varsha (4 July 2017). "Ronnie Screwvala to infuse Rs 100 crore in UpGrad's B2B segment". The Economic Times. Retrieved 12 May 2018.
  10. ^ Pal, Shubhodeep (12 January 2018). "How eSports got screen time in India". The Hindu. Retrieved 12 May 2018.
  11. ^ Kazmin, Amy (20 October 2017). "India's tycoons and a new breed of family office". Financial Times. Retrieved 12 May 2018.
  12. ^ Laghate, Gaurav (1 December 2017). "Former UTV boss, Ronnie Screwvala back in action with new film studio RSVP, keen to build creative team in-house". The Economic Times. Retrieved 12 May 2018.
  13. ^ Screwvala, Ronnie (29 March 2015). "Excerpt: Dream With Your Eyes Open: An Entrepreneurial Journey". Livemint. Retrieved 12 May 2018.