Francis Wacziarg

Wacziarg took an MBA in France and came to India in 1970, initially serving as commercial attaché at the French consulate in Bombay. He later headed the representative office of Banque Nationale de Paris in New Delhi and became a businessman, taking Indian citizenship after two decades in the country.

With the historian and writer Aman Nath, Wacziarg researched and photographed the painted havelis of Shekhawati in Rajasthan, resulting in the book Rajasthan: The Painted Walls of Shekhavati. The pair first came upon the ruined fifteenth-century Neemrana Fort-Palace in 1977 while working on that book; they bought it in 1986 and opened it as a twelve-room hotel in 1991, founding Neemrana Hotels, which went on to restore and operate a series of historic properties including Hill Fort Kesroli.

Wacziarg was a founding member of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) and served as a trustee of the India Foundation for the Arts.

Wacziarg founded The Neemrana Music Foundation to promote Western classical music and opera in India and to train Indian singers and musicians through workshops. After staging The Fakir of Benares, directed by Muzaffar Ali and described by the foundation as the first opera produced in Delhi, it went on to mount productions including The Pearl Fishers, Carmen, Violetta – A Traviata, If I Were King, Hair, Mozart Magic, Don Pasquale, Orfeo and Romeo & Juliet, using casts of Indian, French and Sri Lankan artists and coaches from across Europe.[2][3][4]