Romesh Wadhwani

Early life Romesh T. Wadhwani was born in a Sindhi family in Karachi, Pakistan, 10 days after the partition of India on 15 August 1947. His family moved to India shorty thereafter. He contracted polio at age 2 and had difficulty getting admission to school. He received a bachelor's degree from the IIT Bombay, and master's and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Career 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.

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.

Wadhwani has invested $1 billion in predictive and generative AI SaaS company SymphonyAI.

Philanthropy 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.

He established the Wadhwani Foundation for economic development in emerging economies in 2000,

Personal life He is married to Kathleen "Kathy" Wadhwani, and they live in Palo Alto, California.

Honours Wadhwani was awarded an honorary doctorate by IIT Bombay in 2018. He was awarded the Padma Shri for Trade & Industry, the fourth highest civilian honour of India, in 2020.