Venugopal Dhoot

Venugopal Dhoot (Born 30 Sep 1951 in Mumbai, India) is an Indian business tycoon. He is an alumni of prestigious Sydenham College,Mumbai,India. He was born into a marwadi-banya family. The Marwadi business community hail from Rajasthan,India and are known for producing some of India's finest entrepreneurs and industrialists. He is married, and has two children. His personal fortune is estimated to be 1.6 Billion dollars.

His father, the late Nandlal Madhavlal Dhoot, was a Indian industrialist who made his earlier fortune in the sugarcane and cotton industry. Nandlal Dhoot was the founder of Videocon Corporation and other businesses ventures such as, Videocon Electronics. The company's major breakthrough came when it received one of India's first licenses to make color televisions. As of 2008, Venugopal is its chairman, and it now makes a wide range of electronic consumer goods. Venugopal Dhoot is credited with expanding Videocon Industries from a billion dollar company into a mutli-billion dollar business conglomerate spanning the globe. Videocon Industries is active in India, Oman, Australia, East Timor, France, Sweden, United States, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Netherlands, Finland, Mauritania, Kenya, Maldives, Myanmar, China, Mongolia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Spain, Japan, Dubai, Turkey, Tajikstan, Egypt, England, Mexico, Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia, Angola, Burundi,Zimbabwe and Taiwan. Videocon Industries has a major presence in consumer electronics, telcommunications, oil exploration, glass manufacturing, semiconductors and the asian entertainment industy. His company recently bought a color picture tube unit from the French company Thompson SA, and a refrigerator business from Swedish company Electrolux. According to Forbes, he is the eighteenth richest man in India.

Venugopal Dhoot is an avid cricket fan and accomplished flautist. The Videocon School of Cricket launched in Kolkata, India under the guidance of former Indian Cricket Captain, Saurav Ganguly trains and promotes young cricketers of India in the age group of 10 to 17. Venugopal Dhoot is an environmental enthusiast who is credited for completing a project for planting 2,00,000 teak trees across India. Dhoot is a polyglot, and fluently speaks Marathi, English, French, Arabic, German, Mandarin, Russian and Hindi. His brother, Rajkumar, is a member of the Indian Parliament.

Venugopal Dhoot is a proud Marathi industrialist. He calls himself Maharashtra's "son of the soil". He plans a project in CIDCO Navi Mumbai.

ee also

[http://www.utkalmaheshwari.com/eminent.asp Eminent Maheshwari]

Sources

* [http://www.forbes.com/lists/2005/77/YI9D.html Forbes website]
* [http://www.countercurrents.org/dalit-prasad190704.htm An online magazine article]