Romesh T. Wadhwani | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 1947 (age 78) [1] Karachi, British India |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Alma mater | IIT Bombay Carnegie Mellon University |
| Known for | Internet companies, philanthropy |
| Spouse | Kathleen "Kathy" Wadhwani |
| Children | 1 daughter |
| Relatives | Sunil Wadhwani (brother) |
Romesh T. Wadhwani (born 1947) is an Indian-American billionaire, [2] businessman and head of investment firm SAIGroup. [3] He is the former chairman and CEO of Symphony Technology Group, a private equity firm for software, Internet and technology services companies, including SurveyMonkey [4] and Onclusive [5] . He established the Wadhwani Foundation for economic development in emerging economies, with an initial focus on India.
Romesh T. Wadhwani was born in a Sindhi Hindu family in Karachi, Pakistan, 10 days after India and Pakistan gained Independence from Britain in August 1947. [1] [6] His family moved to India following Indian independence. He contracted polio at age 2 and had difficulty getting admission to school. [7] He received a bachelor's degree from the IIT Bombay, and master's and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. [8]
For a decade, Wadhwani was the founder, chairman, and CEO of two companies, one (American Robot Corporation) specializing in software and solutions for computer-integrated manufacturing and the other (Compu-Guard Corporation) in technology-enabled energy management. [9]
Wadhwani was then the founder, chairman, and CEO of Aspect Development, Inc., from its startup in 1991 to its acquisition in 1999 by i2 Technologies for $9.3 billion in stock. [8]
Together with his brother, Sunil Wadhwani, he has founded Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Mumbai to develop artificial intelligence solutions for public good. [10]
Wadhwani has invested $1 billion in predictive and generative AI SaaS company SymphonyAI. [11]
Wadhwani is on the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, both in Washington, D.C. [12]
He established the Wadhwani Foundation for economic development in emerging economies in 2000, [1] with an initial focus on India. Initiatives in India include the National Entrepreneurship Network, which has established programs to enable growth-centric entrepreneurship at over 500 universities and colleges; a skills college network to help train and place large numbers of young adults in vocational jobs; an opportunities network for the disabled; and a research initiative in biosciences and biotechnology to help create jobs through innovation. [1] The Foundation has launched a US-India policy initiative, with Rick Inderfurth, previously Assistant Secretary of State, as the Wadhwani Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a policy think tank in Washington, D.C., and Hemant Singh, former Indian Ambassador to Japan, as the head of the Wadhwani program at ICRIER, a major policy institute in Delhi. Wadhwani won the India Abroad Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2013.
In 2012, Wadhwani inaugurated a new research centre at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bangalore, named after his late mother, Shanta Wadhwani. [13]
He is married to Kathleen "Kathy" Wadhwani, [13] [14] and they live in Palo Alto, California. [8]
They have one daughter, Melina, who married Patrick Carey in 2011. [15] [16]
Wadhwani was awarded an honorary doctorate by the IIT Bombay in 2018. [17]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)The white-haired, soft-spoken Sindhi was born in Karachi, and later moved to India with his parents.