In 1991, Cyrus entered the family business, becoming director of its flagship construction company, Shapoorji Pallonji & Co. Ltd. His brother, Shapoor, directed the group’s real-estate business, and their father continued as chairman of the board of directors. Pallonji Mistry also sat on the board of the Tata Group, another Mumbai-based conglomerate controlled by another prominent Parsi family, the Tatas.

His firm Cyrus Investments holds 18.4 percent stake in the Tata Group. Notably, 66 percent of TATA Sons is owned by a philanthropic trust called TATA Philanthropic Allied Trusts, which contributes by tackling issues in health, education, and poverty. The company also provides education grants for deserving candidates to study abroad and in India.

Shiv Nadar is the founder of HCL Enterprise and the Chief Strategy Officer of HCL Technologies. Prior to this, he was part of the DCM management trainee system.

Shiv Nadar runs the Shiv Nadar Foundation that supports rural education and provides scholarships for underprivileged students to study abroad. The foundation aims to address the issue of quality in education, create lasting partnerships and have a strong research orientation.

Shiv has received several honors and accolades, including the Padma Bhushan from the President of India in 2008.

Mr. A.M. Naik is the Group Chairman of Larsen & Toubro, one of India’s most respected conglomerates, a Company he has served for 55 years. He is widely credited with sharpening the Company’s focus on key, high-value businesses.

He has pledged 75% of his wealth to philanthropy. In 2009, as part of his private philanthropic initiatives, Mr. Naik set up two trusts to promote causes that have always been close to his heart. The Nirali Memorial Medical Trust focuses on extending modern healthcare to the needy. The Naik Charitable Trust helps in propagating education and skill-building. Both institutions work towards making a significant difference to the lives and livelihoods of the community.

His service to nation, industry and society has secured high national recognition, including the Padma Vibhushan in 2019, the Padma Bhushan in 2009 and a host of awards from industry bodies, academia and the media.

Rohini Nilekani is the Founder-Chairperson of Arghyam, a foundation she set up for sustainable water and sanitation, which funds initiatives all across India. From 2004 to 2014, she was Founder-Chairperson and chief funder of Pratham Books, a non-profit children’s publisher that reached millions of children during her tenure. She also sits on the Board of Trustees of ATREE, an environmental think tank. Nandan Nilekani is the Co-founder and Chairman of the Board at Infosys Ltd. He was most recently the Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in the rank of a Cabinet Minister.

Rohini is a member of the Board of Science Gallery Bengaluru and the Advisory Board of the Well Being Project from 2019. In 2017, she was inducted as Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has served on the eminent person’s advisory boards of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India and the Competition Commission of India. Nandan is the co founder of the E-Governments Foundation. He sits on the Boards of the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), as its President and of Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS). Rohini and Nandan are Co-founders and Directors of EkStep, a non-profit effort to create a learner centric, technology based platform to improve basic literacy and numeracy for millions of children. Rohini and Nandan are committed philanthropists and in 2017, together they signed the Giving Pledge, which commits half their wealth to philanthropic causes.

A former journalist, Rohini has written for many leading publications such as Times of India, India Today, Mint, etc. Penguin Books India published her first book, a medical thriller called Stillborn, and her second non- fiction book, ‘Uncommon Ground’, based on her eponymous TV show. She has written several books for young children, including the popular “Annual Haircut Day”, published by Pratham Books. In 2005, Nandan received the prestigious Joseph Schumpeter prize for innovative services in economy, economic sciences and politics. In 2006, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan. He was also named Businessman of the Year by Forbes Asia. Time magazine listed him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2006 and 2009. He won The Economist Social and Economic Innovation Award for his leadership of India’s Unique Identification initiative (Aadhaar). In 2017, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from E&Y. Nandan Nilekani is the author of “Imagining India” and co-authored his second book with Viral Shah, “Rebooting India: Realizing a Billion Aspirations.”

Mohandas Pai is chairman of Manipal Global Education Services and a former Board Member of the National Stock Exchange in India. He is the former CFO and Board Member at Infosys and has served on the Board of SEBI, He has helped start over 14 different funds in venture, growth, and public markets. He also co-leads a private equity fund – Aarin Capital – that invests in life sciences and education companies. A selection of the companies includes Byju’s, Counsyl, ZoomCar, Praxify, PharmEasy, YourStory, and Licious.

Mohandas has contributed to various philanthropic initiatives in the areas of education, health, nutrition, policy, and governance. He was a trustee and helped found the Akshaya Patra Foundation, a school lunch meal program that feeds 1.8 million school children every day in India. He also donated to help set up various computer centers in Karnataka and multiple scholarship programs.

Mohandas is a Padma Shri Awardee and works actively with government and regulators on policy recommendations and guidelines.

Mr. Ajay Piramal is one of India’s leading industrialists and philanthropists, and Chairman of the Piramal Group. Piramal Group is a global business conglomerate with diverse interests in pharmaceuticals, financial services and real estate, with offices in 30 countries and its products sold in more than 100 markets. The Group has a strong track record of robust sustained partnerships with several marquee global investors and partners. Mr. Piramal is regarded as a torchbearer for responsible entrepreneurship, with a strong focus on ‘Doing Well and Doing Good’, a philosophy that has created long term value for the Group’s stakeholders and the community as a whole.

Mr. Piramal is a passionate advocate of trusteeship and responsible business ethos. He is deeply invested in unlocking India’s socio- economic potential through the Piramal Foundation, and is an ardent promoter of social entrepreneurship. Mr. Piramal actively steers the Group’s involvement in various social impact initiatives through the Piramal Foundation, to develop innovative long term and scalable solutions to resolve issues that are critical roadblocks towards unlocking India’s economic potential. The Foundation currently works across 25 states and has impacted over 112 million lives, mostly in partnership with state governments, through Piramal Swasthya, Piramal Sarvajal and Piramal School of Leadership. Piramal Foundation has partnered with NITI Aayog, India’s foremost think-tank, in 25 Aspirational Districts across 7 states in India, to improve human development indicators across Healthcare & Nutrition and Education, amongst marginalised sections of society.

Mr. Piramal holds an Honours degree in Science from Mumbai University and a Master’s degree in Management Studies from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies. He has completed an Advanced Management Programme from the Harvard Business School, and has been conferred with an Honorary Doctorate in Philosophy (D. Phil) by Amity University, India, and an Honorary Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) Degree by IIT-Indore.

Adar is the son of Cyrus Poonawalla, who founded the Serum Institute of India and is the world’s largest vaccine maker. Adar is Serum’s CEO, and under him the company has invested $800 million to build a new factory to make Covid-19 vaccines. Serum has multiple Covid-19 vaccine partnerships and has launched Covishield, the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. He is also associated as a board member of the GAVI Alliance, which is the Global Vaccine Alliance. He initiated and launched Serum Institute’s Oral Polio Vaccine in 2014, which addressed a global shortage of Polio vaccines at that time, and every year plans to launch a new vaccine for public health starting 2017. His wife, Natasha, Executive Director of Serum Institute of India, also serves as Chairperson of Serum Life Sciences, a newly-established business focused on developing, producing and supplying pandemic vaccines, and works on creative and business strategy for Cyrus Poonawalla Group companies.

In 2011, Adar founded the Villoo Poonawalla Foundation, in memory of his late mother Mrs. Villoo Poonawalla, which today comprises of 6 schools, 1 hospital, 25 water plants at different locations, 250 trucks and machinery picking up and processing waste in and around the city of Pune. His vision is to help address the inequality that exists in India, and around the world, in the focused areas of: Healthcare, Education, Water, Sanitation and the Environment. In 2015, he also set up the Adar Poonawalla Clean City Initiative (APCCI) which is a first of its kind Public-Private-People Partnership towards efficient and scientific waste management. Natasha is Chairperson of the Villoo Poonawalla Foundation, and has helped lead the foundation to improve lives through a focus on increasing education, healthcare, safe water and environmental sanitation. The Foundation invests in a wide range of social projects to help advance the life outcomes of underprivileged communities in India, including establishing its own schools to provide much-needed education, and investing in clean drinking water and a large-scale sanitation program in the city of Pune.

Adar is the recipient of many business and philanthropy awards from CNBC TV18, CNN TV18, Economic Times, Hurun and many others, to name a few in the recent past. He was also listed as one of the 50 most influential young Indians by the GQ Magazine and also was awarded Philanthropist of the year in 2016. Natasha serves as the Director of the Poonawalla Science Park in Netherlands, she is Chair of the British Asian Children’s Protection Fund for India, and is a member of the British Asian Trust’s India Advisory Council. Passionate about business, philanthropy, fashion and design, Natasha holds an M.Sc. in Organisational Behaviour from the London School of Economics.

Azim Premji took over the leadership of Wipro in the late 1960s which is now India’s fourth-largest outsourcer by market cap. Wipro has an innovation center in Silicon Valley, which is focused on developing new technologies and collaborating with startups. Premji believes in ethical, fair, and ecologically sustainable business practices along with active engagement in fundamental societal issues.

Azim Premji Foundation is a not-for profit organisation founded in 2001 to contribute towards just, equitable, and sustainable society. It spans from education to other important areas of equity and human well-being which include improving public school education, universities, grant-making philanthropic initiatives, and most recently, providing Covid-19 relief support. Through grants, the Foundation supports not-for-profit organizations to work for the wellbeing of vulnerable groups. In 2020 his foundation pledged $134 million to help those affected by coronavirus. Azimji is also one of the top philanthropic donors in India.

Over the years, he has received numerous honors and accolades, which he considers as the Wipro and the Foundation’s team accomplishments. He has been recognised by Financial Times, Time, Fortune, Forbes, BusinessWeek, and The Economic Times. He was conferred in January 2011 with Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award in India. Premji is a graduate in electrical engineering from Stanford Univeristy, USA.