Daijiworld Media Network - Mumbai
Mumbai, Aug 29: Ronnie Screwvala’s entrepreneurial journey is a story of persistence, calculated risk-taking and the ability to turn setbacks into opportunities. From growing up in a middle-class neighbourhood in Mumbai to building a media empire that was eventually acquired by The Walt Disney Company, Screwvala has built businesses across media, education, sports and entertainment while also pursuing a strong commitment to rural development.
Born Rohinton Soli Screwvala, Ronnie grew up in Mumbai’s Grant Road area. His entrepreneurial instincts appeared early. As a child, he found ways to make money by selling people access to a vantage point from his home during film premieres near his neighbourhood. Years later, that instinct to identify opportunities would become the foundation of a remarkable business career.
Screwvala is a first-generation entrepreneur who did not begin his career with the advantages of an established business family or a ready-made funding ecosystem. According to his publisher, he even failed his Bachelor of Commerce course in college, but the setback did not stop him from pursuing his ambition of becoming an entrepreneur.
His first major breakthrough came in the early 1980s when he entered the emerging cable television business. At a time when cable television was virtually unknown in India, Screwvala launched a cable TV network and helped pioneer multi-channel television viewing in the country.
The beginning, however, was far from easy. The upGrad Foundation’s account of his journey notes that for the first two years of his cable television venture, he found no takers and was advised to treat it as a failed start-up and move on. Instead, he persisted, eventually establishing himself as a pioneer of cable television in India.
He subsequently ventured into toothbrush manufacturing and, despite several setbacks, built one of India’s largest toothbrush operations at a time when entrepreneurs had little access to private equity funding or bank finance.
Another early experiment, television home shopping, failed because the market was ahead of its time. But Screwvala did not allow these failures to define his career. Instead, they became lessons that shaped his approach to entrepreneurship.
Building UTV
In 1990, Screwvala, along with Zarina Mehta and Deven Khote, founded United Television, or UTV. The company began with television programming and gradually expanded into a diversified media and entertainment business covering television, films, broadcasting, digital content, games and other platforms.
UTV went through several difficult phases. According to the upGrad Foundation, the company experienced multiple near-bankruptcies and numerous pivots during its 15-year journey before becoming a large-scale media and entertainment enterprise.
The company eventually became one of India’s prominent media groups. UTV was listed in 2005 and later became part of The Walt Disney Company. Disney acquired UTV in 2012 at an enterprise value of $1.4 billion, marking one of the defining milestones of Screwvala’s entrepreneurial career.
His success earned him international recognition. Newsweek described him as the “Jack Warner of India”, while Esquire included him among the 75 most influential people of the 21st century and Fortune listed him among Asia’s 25 most powerful people.
Failure as a lesson, not a full stop
What makes Screwvala’s story particularly relevant to aspiring entrepreneurs is his attitude towards failure. His own book, Dream With Your Eyes Open: An Entrepreneurial Journey, explores the failures and successes he encountered while building businesses over more than two decades.
The book emphasises the importance of moving forward after failure rather than treating it as the end of an entrepreneurial journey.
Screwvala has described himself as a “cat with nine lives” because of the number of setbacks he experienced. His philosophy has been that success cannot always be timed and that entrepreneurs have to remain committed to their journey even when the outcome is uncertain.
A second innings in education
After UTV, Screwvala entered what he describes as his “second innings”, turning his attention to sectors that he believed could have a large impact on India.
One of his major ventures was upGrad, which he co-founded with Mayank Kumar and Phalgun Kompalli. The company focused on online higher education and lifelong learning, particularly for students and working professionals seeking to upgrade their skills.
upGrad has since grown into a major higher education technology platform. Its website currently states that it has empowered more than 10 million learners globally and works with hundreds of courses and more than 1,400 hiring partners.
The idea behind the venture was based on a changing world of work, where learning and reskilling would increasingly become lifelong requirements.
Giving back through Swades Foundation
For Screwvala, entrepreneurship has also been closely connected with social responsibility.
Along with his wife, Zarina Screwvala, he co-founded the Swades Foundation, which focuses on rural empowerment. Rather than simply providing financial assistance, the foundation works with rural communities in areas including water and sanitation, health, education and livelihoods, with the aim of enabling communities to become self-reliant.
The foundation describes its mission as lifting one million lives out of poverty every five years through a community-driven model. Its approach emphasises community leadership and ownership so that people can take charge of their own development.
This approach reflects another important lesson from Screwvala’s entrepreneurial career: building systems and empowering people can create a more lasting impact than simply providing short-term assistance.
Continuing to take risks
Screwvala has continued to diversify his interests. His ventures and investments have extended into sports, films and digital content. Through RSVP Movies, he returned to storytelling and film production, while his investment activities have focused on supporting businesses and entrepreneurs.
His journey, therefore, is not simply about the financial success of selling a company to a global giant. It is about repeatedly entering unfamiliar markets, surviving failures, recognising changing opportunities and starting again.
From cable television to UTV, from education through upGrad to rural empowerment through the Swades Foundation, Screwvala’s career demonstrates the value of staying the course.
His own entrepreneurial philosophy can perhaps be summed up by the title of his book: Dream With Your Eyes Open — dream ambitiously, but remain realistic about the risks, setbacks and hard work required to turn those dreams into reality.