Narotam Sekhsaria

Sekhsaria was born in 1950 in Chirawa, Rajasthan, into the Sekhsaria Marwari trading family, and was brought up in Bombay. He trained as a chemical engineer at the University Department of Chemical Technology in Mumbai, now the Institute of Chemical Technology.

He began his working life in the family's cotton trading business. In 1983 he left trading to set up Ambuja Cements, which developed captive seaports and moved cement by sea, and became one of the most efficient cement producers in India. Ambuja later acquired a stake in ACC Limited. In 2005 Sekhsaria divested his interests in both companies to the Holcim group, remaining as non-executive chairman, and is now chairman emeritus of Ambuja Cements.

He wrote an account of the company, The Ambuja Story: How a Group of Ordinary Men Created an Extraordinary Company, published by HarperCollins India in 2022.

Sekhsaria established the Ambuja Cement Foundation, now the Ambuja Foundation, in the early 1990s, on the view that the sustainability of the business depended on the development of the communities around its plants. It works on agriculture, water, health, education, skills training and women's empowerment. He remains its chairman.

The Narotam Sekhsaria Foundation, set up in 2002 with an endowment from him, works in three areas. Its health programme covers cancer care, tobacco control and palliative care, and reports screening 60,000 people for cancer, training more than 139 doctors through clinical fellowships and running tobacco awareness work across twelve states. Its education programme awards merit-based postgraduate scholarships and fellowships for study at institutions in India and abroad, of which more than 2,200 have been given, and supports research. Its livelihoods programme funds skills training and vocational guidance in rural and urban areas. The foundation also makes grants in governance and civic issues, art and culture, and youth and urbanisation.[2][3][4][5]