Ag Talk | Up, Close and Personal with Ronnie Screwvala

Ronnie Screwvala started his career as a local cable TV operator in Mumbai in 1981. That was an era when there was only one channel Doordarshan, the state television provider and the Network offered a three-four video channel showing movies to some affluent homes in Cuffe Parade, Mumbai. He also started producing advertisements and content for Doordarshan with serials like Lifeline and Shanti.

In the year 1990, he founded the UTV Group providing television content to broadcasters. In a span of less than two decades, UTV expanded into broadcasting, gaming, films and other businesses. In 2012, Walt Disney Co. took over UTV and Ronnie Screwvala stayed on as Managing Director of the Walt Disney Company India and in 2013 handed over the reins to protégé Siddhartha Roy Kapur and exited the company.

After moving on from UTV (now Disney), he has been involved in philanthropy work and has also ventured and invested into multiple businesses. To get a deeper understanding of his current work and his journey so far we at Adgully caught up with Ronnie Screwvala.

Adgully (AG): Share some of your high points in your entrepreneurial journey.
Ronnie Screwvala (RS): First I’d like to say that I started life in Grant Road, Mumbai in a Parsi family where the first 15 years have been very influential and those years have been really influential in many possible aspects as they taught me to be flat on the ground and value the life to the fullest. I think I come from a good Parsi upbringing and I think that all kind of comes together.

If I were to encapsulate a couple of ones then I would say, we all need to be a lot more aspirational and ambitious about what we do in life. And I think part of my book is to really spend lot more time to make it sound like we should be aspirational and raise the ambition levels in the country. We may be a lot more aspirational on one side; by on the other side we don’t communicate much. We’ve got something doing but we need to talk about that. I’m not talking about the book, but about any brand, that when we do, we do. I think today if we’re looking up to political leadership, I think after a long time you’ve got someone who can communicate so brilliantly and then you want to be inspired.

AG: What are the ventures you have been involved in post UTV?
RS: I’ve been a part of Swades Foundation in a positive way for a long time now. We just launched an online education company and similarly an online digital company. And then I’ve been investing in some ecommerce ventures.

AG: Any thoughts of expanding your investments in the ecommerce space?
RS: No, those are the only ones. Now I’m really focused on building our own business. Those were done at an early stage.

AG: You just started a digital media venture? Would you be focusing on that too?
RS: Yes, that and also education.

AG: What more would you like to do in education space?
RS: We’re focusing on post-graduation.

AG: You’ve been involved in Philanthropy. What are your plans to further enrich your philanthropical work?
RS: We’re working on Swades in 3000 villages, we’re working with them on giving them drinking water, sanitation, health, education and most important taking their livelihood up.

AG: Share some insights on your book.
RS: The book is about entrepreneurship so basically all the anecdotes that are there are from my entrepreneurial experience. And it’s about talking to people of various nature, who could just about a PG, or done with your schooling or education and looking at the corporate world or you could be a working professional wanting to be a businessman or it could be anyone, maybe you as well!

AG: How differentiated will be your approach be to launch the book?
RS: So I think this the first time ever that in India, that anyone has launched a cover. It’s really unique. So I think as much as I have been entrepreneurial in writing the book, I’m going to be very entrepreneurial in marketing the book. I want to do things that have not been done before to see if we can push the envelope because books in India, especially non-fiction books don’t go fast when it comes to selling. So I think I’m done with my job for writing the book, now my job is tell people and make them know about it enough to come and buy it and then it’s up to them if they like it or don’t. Exactly, why we triggered in a very creative way because I think launching a cover of a book is something that nobody has done.

We’re creating an ad film on entrepreneurship and it’s not about the book but in general. The digital media today is very challenging, so what we can do is shock messaging and we use the digital media a lot, so that is going to be one thing we will do extensively.

AG: You have been instrumental in empowering farmers. How will this book inspire them?
RS: All of them are not farmers; it’s a total of 10000 villagers. Going forward the Hindi version of this book will be available. So in the first week of May, we will be coming with the Hindi version of this book and it is rare that in such a short period that a translated version of any book is going to be launched.

AG: Media reports say that the book will be converted into a television show. Is that true?
RS: No, the book can never be converted into a television show. I think what was talked about is the audio visual of the book which will be a first of its kind because the book is something that I can narrate in my own language; there could be a strong conversation but it won’t be a television show or a movie.

AG: What advice would you like to give to today’s entrepreneurs?
RS: I think the first thing that I would like to advice them is that they need to be clear about what they want. It’s not that difficult and you don’t need to be fearful of failure. You need to understand that it’s not an outing. Most people look at it like; I’ll try it for two years. If you start with that mentality then you are going to fail. And that’s a very strong point, because starting entrepreneurship is not an outing, it’s a journey. By Archit Ambekar | Twitter: @aambarchit