Ronnie Screwvala

Early life and education

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.

Personal life

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 For Profit, The Lighthouse Project, and who is married to sports commentator Suhail Chandhok.

Early days

Opportunistic in the early days of his entrepreneurship, Screwvala founded a toothbrush manufacturing company. Screwvala's is also credited with pioneering Cable TV in India (1981) at a time when there was a single terrestrial channel (Doordarshan) and grew that to multiple cities and most of the hotel chains in India.

He hosted a quiz show Mashoor Mahal in Doordarshan in 1985.

United Television (UTV) 1990-2012

Screwvala founded UTV and over the period grew it into a media conglomerate spanning a leading movie studio, a Games Studio and creative content company that went public and listed on stock exchanges in 2005 and into which Disney gradually took a substantial stake until he divested the whole company to them in 2012.

2013 onwards

The Swades Foundation

Along with his wife Zarina, Ronnie has founded The Swades Foundation, named after the acclaimed film he produced, whose goal is to lift a million people out of poverty.

Presently, Swades is active in Raigad district in the state of Maharashtra in two thousand villages and involving half a million people. It is working on Water, Sanitation, Health, Education and the main focus is on Livelihood opportunities.

upGrad

Screwvala co-founded upGrad, which is one of the largest Online Education companies in India - focused on the higher Education and Specialization sector. They focus majorly on Digital Marketing, Data Analytics, Digital Technology Management, Data Driven Management and Product Management. upGrad has tie-ups with several colleges including MICA.

USports

Screwvala co-founded U Sports with a focus on three sports, Kabaddi a popular sport in India and around Asia (his team U Mumba is one of the top teams in the 12 team ProKabaddi League), E Sports and in Football where under the brand U Dreams the focus is to train and manage talent under various years of age for a sustained duration, and then manage their careers for the long term to play professionally in India and globally.

RSVP Movies

RSVP Movies is Screwvala's re-entry into the media and entertainment industry. This time is focussed on developing its own scripts and screenplays and working with directors that share the common vision of storytelling.

Unilazer

Unilazer was incorporated by Screwvala as a public equity company that has made investments in the Indian new economy companies with early stage investments with significant minority stake as also bringing with him his entrepreneurial experience to the founders. The sectors in which Unilazer has invested range from e commerce to a leading online eyewear company in India, and from AI and Bots to Agriculture to Microhousing Finance.

Filmography

Films

The following is a list of films produced / co-produced by Screwvala

Television

Awards

References

References

1. Ansari, Humaira. (27 September 2010). "This Parsi cook's secret lies in her grandma's recipes". DNA India.
2. "Ronnie Screwvala - Creating Emerging Markets - Harvard Business School".
3. "Ronnie Screwvala {{!}} Speaker {{!}} ASU GSV Summit".
4. (18 September 2008). "Tata, Ambani, Mittal among most influential of 21st century". The Economic Times.
5. (27 April 2009). "Moot world's most influential; Sonia, Tata in top 100: Report". The Economic Times.
6. (5 May 2011). "Bollywood's disruptor".
7. (8 December 2011). "Behind Ronnie Screwvala's Rs 2,000-cr Walt Disney deal". Business Today.
8. (30 December 2016). "After Building a Media Empire, What's Next? Lifting One Million From Poverty". The New York Times.
9. (4 July 2017). "Ronnie Screwvala to infuse Rs 100 crore in UpGrad's B2B segment". The Economic Times.
10. (12 January 2018). "How eSports got screen time in India". The Hindu.
11. (20 October 2017). "India's tycoons and a new breed of family office". Financial Times.
12. (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.
13. (29 March 2015). "Excerpt: Dream With Your Eyes Open: An Entrepreneurial Journey". Livemint.
14. Upadhyaya, Ananya. (2025-11-15). "upGrad Joins Bidding Fray For BYJU’S Parent Company upGrad Joins Bidding Fray For BYJU’S Parent Company".
15. "Ronnie Screwvala earmarks $50 mn to back AI, deeptech, spacetech startups; says he’s looking for his 'next Lenskarts'".
16. (2025-11-19). "Ronnie Screwvala announce $50M AI fund".
17. (1 June 2012). "The Interpreter". Caravan Magazine.
18. Crabtree, James. (28 June 2013). "At home: Ronnie Screwvala". [[Financial Times]].
19. Kumaana-Wadia, Shirin. (25 June 2008). "Ronnie Screwvala: Bollywood to Hollywood". Parsi Khabar.
20. (26 April 2015). "Lighthouse full of hope". Deccan Chronicle.
21. (29 January 2017). "Trishya Screwvala to tie the knot with beau Suhail Chandok - Times of India". The Times of India.
22. (2012). "Conjugations: Marriage and Form in New Bollywood Cinema". University of Chicago Press.
23. (2020-05-08). "Upskilling and reskilling: Need of the hour to keep up with the fast-paced digital transformation".
24. Vignesh, J.. "UpGrad ties up with MICA to offer digital marketing programme". The Economic Times.
25. (3 September 2015). "15 boys fulfil dream, to train with German football clubs". The Hindu.
26. (9 May 2018). "Ronnie Screwvala's Unilazer Ventures hikes stake in online insurance comparison platform Easypolicy". The Financial Express.
27. (20 May 2016). "Ratan Tata, Ronnie Screwvala invest in artificial intelligence startup Niki". The Economic Times.
28. [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0780098/ Ronnie Screwvala] ''imdb''
29. "It's a wrap for Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte starrer Raat Akeli Hai". India Today.