Om Wadhwa lived a life full of surprises and dramatic upheavals. Although he was born rich, his family had to leave all their wealth behind during the partition, and start over from scratch. Om was known for listening to his instincts, and taking bold,unconventional choices. This, along with his sheer focus and hard work propelled him to great success as an entrepreneur and he went on to become a reverred name in the Indian electronics industry. Humbly attributing his achievements to ‘pure luck,’ Om set up the Metores Trust and dedicated the latter part of his life to serving humanity.
Born in 1938 in Malakwal village in undivided Punjab to a rich Zamindar (landlord), Om and his family moved to India 1947, leaving everything behind.
Although, formal schooling was not common at the time, Om finished high school upon his father’s insistence, while his brothers helped with the business
At 16, he got a job at Mercury Travels. A chance encounter with an American couple changed his life forever. They offered him a scholarship to study in America, and he accepted. This was the first of many impulsive decisions that
would define his extraordinary journey.
Om reached New York with just $5 in his pocket and went on to do an MBA in Northwestern University, Chicago. He then got a Masters Degree in Economics and a Law Degree and started teaching business management while simultaneously doing his in .
Just as his life in America was settling down, Om reconnected with an old American acquaintance who offered him a job at the Associated Commodity Corporation. As his education was irrelevant for the position on offer, he had to undergo an entire year of training. His impressive performance secured him the job at a starting salary of $400.
About a year and a half later, the company opened an office
in India, and Om was asked to head it. He established a
factory in Bihar to extract Mica, a component that was in
great demand as insulation material in the electronics
industry. This marked the humble beginnings of his journey
into electronics.
In 1980, Om founded JV Electronics in Faridabad, producing mica capacitors, EMI filters, and LED lamps. He established a 100% export-oriented unit in Haryana, pioneering electronic component exports to Japan and Europe. Through Olympia
Electronics, he introduced iconic brands like Samsung and
Sony to the Indian market.
Om Wadhwa was president of ELCINA, India’s oldest and largest electronics industry association, during 1980-1982, 1986-1987, and 1991-1992. In [year] he sold his factory and used to proceeds to set up Metores Trust, dedicated to the cause of girls’ education and healthcare.However, he remained closely connected to the electronics industry. In2018, the industry honoured his contributions with the prestigious Special Jury Award for lifelong service at the ELCINA-EFY awards.
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Uma Wadhwa has an MA in English Literature and has been keenly involved in music, painting and social work. She has been the district chairman of Inner Wheel International and is closely associated with Akshya Pratishan and the Kitchen Garden Association. She is also the wife of Om Wadhwa.
After founding Tinker Toys in 1988, one of India’s largest toy manufacturing companies – and setting up Kidstuff Promotions and Events, Pankaj moved to Uttarakhand. In Uttarakhand, he has built social venture company Himjoli, working with producer groups, thousands of rural farmers, artisans and women’s groups and in 2017, he founded Udhyam, a program for encouraging and facilitation of entrepreneurial activity in Kumaon region.
Minu has been a journalist for over three decades with stints in newspapers, magazines, and news agencies, including the Times of India, Indian Express, The New Paper and IANS. She is currently National Editor with the Press Trust of India (PTI).
Sanjay Chhabra is a Chartered Accountant by training and has had a diverse career as Management Consultant, Corporate Manager, and Entrepreneur. He is currently engaged in private investments and mentoring.
Secretary
Anjali, an alumnus of Delhi College of Engineering (DCE) and a 2016 India Fellow, spent a year in rural Bihar developing and piloting a digital language competency program with the NGO Parivartan. She has interned with Teach for India in Delhi and volunteered with Child Rights & You (CRY) for about 3 years before she decided to work full-time in the development sector. She has been closely associated for the past 7 years with Udhyam in Uttarakhand working on creating rural entrepreneurs and empowering youth in the Kumaon region. With a team across all districts in Kumaon ,Anjali heads all the rural and youth programs in Uttarakhand for Metores trust.
Our board of experienced individuals
Anupama Pain, is the coFounder of India Fellow, India’s premier social leadership programme for the youth at the grassroots. She has work experience in corporate finance consulting with Deloitte, and academic background in technology. Work locations include western ghats and Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, and Uttarakhand. She also has experience of setting up an enterprise –Fresh From Farms, which connected farmer groups from rural Pune to urban consumers in Mumbai housing societies. She is also an academic advisor and faculty at IIM Udaipur.
Rahul, founder of UnLtd Delhi, is a social entrepreneur. He co-founded iVolunteer in 2001 and introduced the concept of formal volunteering in India. Rahul currently teaches at various academic institutions and evangelises the idea of cash transfers through his Cashrelief project.
Sameer has been a marketing professional for over two decades and is presently the CEO of Multiplier Brand Solutions Pvt Ltd. He has worked with clients such as Samsung, Hindustan Unilever, Sony Ericsson and Panasonic.
An alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, Surabhi has over two decades of experience in Recruitment Consulting and leads the Executive Search practice at Quadrangle. She is also on the Advisory Council of ILSS, that aims to build capacity and leadership talent in the Indian social sector.
Tautik believes in developing sustainable livelihoods. He has over 20 years of grassroots and corporate experience, including consulting for the World Bank in Bangladesh, UNDP in Pakistan, APIX in Senegal, UNICEF in Bastar, among others.
Dev has 24 years of experience across industries such as Consumer Durables and Financial Services that include Insurance, and Microfinance – with a specialised interest in rural markets. He now lives in Kumaon and runs a farm and homestay, while continuing to develop financial inclusion and entrepreneurship programmes.
A graduate Industrial Engineer and post graduate Software Engineer, Dhiraj has donned several hats over the last 28 years as a business leader, and social entrepreneur
passionate about technology-enabled social change. Since 2009, he sustainable rural livelihood creation Rural BPO (www.B2R.in: Business-To-Rural)
An entrepreneur at heart Deepak – who has lived in Nainital all his life – has been involved in various businesses ranging from real estate and adventure sports. He now lives in a remote Kumaoni village, promoting village tourism and exploring other sustainable agri-based income-generating initiatives.
Ashish spent a few years in Delhi running his own adventure tourism company, Himalayan Wanderers. In 2004, he moved back to his home district of Nainital to start the Himalayan Village resort at Sonapani, where he hosts the Sonapani Film Festival twice a year. In addition to running Café Lota and Roots in New Delhi, Ashish and his wife remain closely engaged with the local community around Sonapani through livelihood and handicraft ventures.
After an MBA from Kellogg and various corporate roles, Chetan returned to India in 2007. His last role here was as CEO of HCL Learning. In 2015, he moved to the mountains where he brought his love for writing, teaching and entrepreneurship together to create his next business. A published author, Chetan created the Himalayan Writing Retreat and co-founded the social enterprise Old Hill, which makes artisanal cheese, with his partner Nitin Dayalu.
With an MBA degree from FORE (Delhi) and an MSW from TISS (Mumbai), Anshu wound her way from the corporate IT sector in Delhi to the tea plantations of Munnar, and then to the development sector as the CEO of Charkha, a Delhi-based NGO. She now lives and works on an organic farm in Kumaon.
Aditya worked in the media industry for about 20 years before transplanting his life from the capital to the hillside town of Uttarakhand. He is the owner of Nirvana Cottages cum Wellness Center in Mukteshwar. He is also a part of the OCS Foundation and works closely with extended groups of women farmers and their children in the region.
Surabhi Bikhchandani is a Career Coach at Quadrangle (part of Naukri.com). An alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad and St. Stephen’s College, she has over 25 years of experience largely in recruitment consulting and recently in career coaching. She has also handled leadership hiring for her clients, which include social purpose organizations. She is on the Advisory Council of the nonprofit ILSS, which aims to build capacity and leadership talent in the Indian social sector. She also assists various nonprofits in their leadership development.
Shiv Dayal is Founder and Managing Director of Langham Capital, India and UK. Langham Capital provides expert corporate finance advisory services to companies seeking to build their global businesses. Immediately prior to founding Langham Capital, Shiv managed two technology ventures in Europe. Previously, Shiv worked in the Mergers & Acquisitions divisions of JP Morgan and Dresdner Kleinwort in London and New York. Shiv began his career with the Tata Group of Companies in India. As a member of the Tata Administrative Service, he worked on a number of projects in areas such as hotels, luxury goods, telecoms and soft drink bottling and distribution. He is also a non-executive Director of Baroda Pioneer Asset Management and Chairman of F1F9 (India).
Shilpa Sharma exchanged the corner office with entrepreneurial dreams after an enriching three-decade long spell in the corporate world of FMCG and retail giants. She leveraged her insights and learnings from her travels across India and launched Breakaway – a bespoke travel enterprise specializing in ‘beyond the brochure’ experiences; and then went on to co-found Jaypore, an online retail portal that defines exquisite handmade products. Giving shape to another aspiration, Shilpa ventured into hospitality with Mustard – a concept restaurant in Goa that she co-founded with her friend, Punam Singh. A delicious blend of her passion for food and exceptional experiences, it offers Bengali and French Cuisine, and Mustard is poised to be launched in Chennai soon. She also finds time for leisure travel, creative pursuits, and mentoring young women.
Rishi Bhatnagar is a lawyer by qualification. He specializes in corporate advisory, regulatory and structuring issues particularly with respect to investments in India. Originally from Jamshedpur and educated in Darjeeling, he loves the hills. He has helped draft legal documentation for a number of charities and trusts such as American Heart Foundation, Rotary International, Be Trust, Nirankari Sant Samagham and so on. Rishi likes DIY and repairing things and is currently working on reducing his carbon footprint.
Anurag has built and led global and diverse high-growth and large IT businesses. He runs an NGO devoted to Indian performing arts and manages a trust dedicated to the education of underprivileged children. He teaches at Dayalbagh Educational Institute and is the editor of the Sigma Six Q&V sustainability blog. Anurag is an alumnus of IIT Bombay.
Sameer Mehta is CEO & Managing Director of Multiplier Brand Solutions Pvt Ltd which specializes in Managed Services (Field Force Marketing Services), Enterprise Technology Solutions, and Retail Solutions. Sameer has 25+ years of experience. He has earlier held various posts such as General Manager @ Mudra Communications; Sr. Vice President @ DDB Mudra Group; and President @ Tracylocke. He is an expert in experiential marketing, Trade Marketing, Field Marketing Services, Brand & Product Promotions, Retail Merchandising, Event Management, Corporate Seminars, Response Management, and Database Management Enterprise Tech Solutions. Sameer believes in giving back to society which has led to his association with certain causes in the space of education for children and creating livelihoods among the needful. He is on the advisory board of the NGOs Udayan Care and Udhyam.
Raju Lal has worked with some of India's leading business houses on performance improvement, risk consulting and governance. He has over 30 years of experience capturing profitable business opportunities and motivating talented, cross-functional teams. Currently, he is closely associated with EY Foundation and actively participates in community engagement and volunteering initiatives which are aligned to EY Corporate Social Responsibility values.
V.K. Madhavan initially worked for 15 years in rural India with the Urmul Rural Health Research and Development Trust in North-Western Rajasthan and later with the Central Himalayan Rural Action Group (CHIRAG). He has also consulted for ActionAid on policy related issues; and on women’s leadership and governance with the Hunger Project. He put in a three year stint as head of a skill development company that sought to provide unemployed young people with jobs in the organized sector. Since May 2016, Madhavan has been the Chief Executive of WaterAid India.
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Aditya worked in the media industry for about 20 years before transplanting his life from the capital to the hillside town of Uttarakhand. He is the owner of Nirvana Cottages cum Wellness Center in Mukteshwar. He is also a part of the OCS Foundation and works closely with extended groups of women farmers and their children in the region.
Metores Trust, that stands for metal and ores was the brainchild of Om Wadhwa in 1981. Wadhwa was born in 1938 in Malakwal village of pre-partion Punjab and lived a life full of surprises and dramatic upheavals. From being the son of a rich zamindar in undivided Punjab Read More>>
Uma Wadhwa is the wife of om Wadhwa
Born in Singapore in 1936, she has her roots in Sialkot in pre-partition Punjab
An MA in English literature from Delhi university her interests lie in painting, music and social work
She has been past district chairman on inner wheel international and is closely associated with Akshaya Pratishan and kitchen garden association.
Pankaj founded Tinker Toys in 1988 which went to become one of the largest toy manufacturing companies in India. In 1995, he set up Kidstuff Promos and Events, specializing in promotional marketing .after moving to Uttarakhand he began Himjoli, a social venture company in Uttarakhand working with producer groups, thousands of rural farmers, artisans and women’s groups. In 2017 he founded udhyam -a rural entrepreneurship program to encourage entrepreneurial activity in rural communities of Kumaon
Mine has has been a journalist for over three decades with stints in newspapers, magazines and news agencies, including the Times of India, Indian Express, The New Paper in Singapore, and IANS. She is currently National Editor with the Press Trust of India (PTI).
Sanjay Chhabra is a Chartered Accountant by training and has had a diverse career as Management Consultant, Corporate Manager, and Entrepreneur. He is currently engaged in private investments and mentoring.
Anjali, an alumnus of the Delhi College of Engineering (DCE) and a 2016 India Fellow, spent a year in rural Bihar developing and piloting a digital language competency program with the NGO Parivartan. She has interned with Teach for India in Delhi and volunteered with Child Rights & You (CRY) for about 3 years before she decided to work full-time in the development sector.
She has been closely associated for the past 3 years with Udhyam in Uttarakhand working on creating rural entrepreneurs and empowering youth in the Kumaon region
With a team across all districts in Kumaon ,Anjali heads all the rural and youth programs in Uttarakhand for Metores trust
Anjali, an engineer by training, piloted a digital language competency program in Bihar, worked with Teach for India and Child Rights and You (CRY) before devoting herself full time to the development sector. She now heads all rural and youth programmes for the Metores Trust.
