Forbes World’s Billionaires List: This Surprise Entry From Bollywood Has Trumped Khans, Big-B

Entrepreneur and movie producer Ronnie Screwvala is mentioned in the Forbes World’s Billionaire list. The magazine released a fresh list on April 2, 2025, naming 3,028 global billionaires for this year. Screwvala has produced blockbuster films from period drama films to dramedy films. He is the only person from Bollywood to be included in the Forbes list and rightly so, with a net worth of over a billion dollars. His net worth is USD 1.5 Billion, as mentioned in the Forbes List.

Screwvala’s net wealth is the combined sum of the three well-celebrated and respected Khans of Bollywood, these superstars include Shah Rukh Khan at USD 700 Million, Salman Khan at USD 390 Million and Aamir Khan with a net worth of USD 1.38 Billion.

A Visionary Beyond Cinema: Screwvala’s Multifaceted Legacy

Ronnie Screwvala, born in Mumbai, started his first entrepreneurial journey in the 70s by manufacturing toothbrushes. He has done his graduation in commerce from Mumbai University. In 1990, Screwvala also launched UTV which went on to produce many blockbuster films and TV comedy-drama series and was renamed UTV Motion Pictures. The production company produced iconic films for the following 2 decades including Swades, Rang De Basanti, Khosla Ka Ghosla, Jodha Akbar, Fashion, Delhi Belly and Barfi.

UTV Motion Pictures also produced many TV shows that are still a major part of many people’s memories. From TV shows like Shanti, Hip Hip Hurray to Shaka Laka Boom, Khichdi and Shararat that still find their way in pop culture and can even be found on social media in the forms of memes and posts.

He sold his investment in UTV to the Walt Disney Company for more than $450 million in 2012 and served as managing director of the India branch, according to Forbes.

Screwvala is the chairman and co-founder of the Mumbai-based edtech company upGrad along with Mayank Kumar, Phalgun Kompalli, Ravijot Chugh. Ronnie Screwvala and his wife Zarina co-founded the nonprofit named Swades Foundation, which focuses on rural development projects. The goal of the foundation is to improve one million rural lives annually by implementing a sustainable, scalable, and community-centric model of health, education, water, sanitation, and economic development.

Ronnie Screwvala has discussed the importance of theatre and how it influenced his career path. "Some people do sports. I consider myself fortunate to have a passion for theatre. And I believe theatre taught me all I needed to know today, including soft skills, collaboration, involvement, and self-confidence," reported the Times of India.

Pointing to today's Indian youth and their goals, he said, "They're wired quite differently. Their inquisitiveness and curiosity are on another level. I believe the main difficulty here is the youth's feeling of expectation." which he thinks is a disappointment, and in doing so he further believes that we are disappointing an entire society itself