Ronnie Screwvala

Biography

Rohinton Soli "Ronnie" Screwvala (born 8 September 1956) is an Indian entrepreneur and film producer. He has been named on Esquire's List of the 75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century and ranked 78 among the 100 most influential people in the world on the Time 100 (compiled by Time Magazine, 2009). He was also listed among 25 Asia's Most Powerful people by Fortune Magazine.

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.

From 2013 onwards, 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 and then move to another geography.

He has co-founded UpGrad which is into Online Education in the higher education and specialization sector, built a Sports company (U Sports) spanning Football / E-Sports and Kabaddi, re-entered the media content space to build a creative content company in Movies and Digital Content (RSVP), authored a Book titled Dream with Your Eyes Open and through his investment company Unilazer Ventures he has been a significant private equity investor in Indian start-ups with early-stage investment and significant minority stakes.

Screwvala was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) into a Parsi family. His father was an executive at the British firm J L Morrison and Smith & Nephew. Screwvala schooled and went to college in Mumbai at Cathedral and John Connon School and Sydenham College.

Screwvala had a keen interest in theatre while in school and acted in professional plays with Bombay theatre as a hobby. He played notable roles in Shakespeare’s Othello and Death of a Salesman.

Screwvala is married to Zarina Mehta, his second marriage. Zarina has been a co-founder in the media company UTV they founded, and now is the co-trustee of their Philanthropic foundation; The Swades Foundation. They live in Breach Candy, South Mumbai.

His first wife, Manjula Nanavati, and Screwvala have one daughter, Trishya Screwvala, who runs her own Not Profit, The Lighthouse Project, and who is married to sports commentator Suhail Chandhok.