Ronnie Screwvala Speaker ProfileRonnie Screwvala is a first generation entrepreneur who started his journey by introducing India to multi channel TV viewing, by launching the first cable TV network in the country. From there, he went on to build a Media and Entertainment conglomerate spanning Television, Motion Pictures, Broadcasting, Games and Digital, that he listed in 2005 for a market cap of $ 55 million and that The Walt Disney Company bought in 2012 for an enterprise value of $1.4 billion.
Ronnie puts a great deal of emphasis on Social Welfare. He founded a Foundation with a focus on Rural India and adopted over 200 villages in Maharashtra to work on their self-sufficiency in water, health, education and livelihood. Onto his second innings after selling his stake to Disney - The Foundation - entitled SWADES, has a plan to impact one million in Rural Maharashtra in five years, with a clear exit/empowerment strategy from those villages, and building a model for others to follow. The Foundation has committed an initial amount of $50 million in its first tranche. . In his very first novel Dream With Your Eyes Open talks on two things – entrepreneur and entrepreneurship In Dream With Your Eyes Open, first-generation entrepreneur and UTV-founder Ronnie Screwvala details his vast experiences and the myriad lessons learnt from more than two decades of building some successful (and some not-so-successful) businesses, bringing clarity to a quickly changing business landscape and making an impassioned case for the role of entrepreneurship in India's future. If you’ve ever had an impactful, disruptive product or business idea, been curious about owning your own business, or have already taken the first steps on your entrepreneurial journey, this is the book for you. If you’ve been running your own company for the last seven-odd years, and scale, brand and value-creation are some of the crossroads for you now, keep reading. If you think your parents or family would freak out if you dared to suggest ditching your safe haven—your professional job—to pursue your dreams of owning your own business, relax. Better yet, share this book with them. If you’re an experienced professional ready to take the plunge into starting your own business or committed to growing into an effective leader in the company you work for, read on. This book hopes to demystify failure, inspire success, raise ambitions and help you think big. Dream With Your Eyes Open shares failures and triumphs, thoughts and anecdotes in a simple narrative that could help you gain better insights into entrepreneurship and give you a fighting chance when it comes to realizing your dreams in a David-versus-Goliath world. Only then will we succeed in harnessing the country’s enormous entrepreneurial potential with the most energetic and passionate people in the world, alive with fresh mindsets, optimism and hope. This book is about ‘it can be done’, not ‘I did it’. It’s all possible. Just dream your own dream—and when you do, dream with your eyes open. |
 
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