The single largest donation of $ 250,000 (Rs 2.1 crores) from Ronnie and Shahnaaz Irani of Oklahoma, USA, will benefit the five-year-old Zarathushti Entrepreneurship Development Foundation (ZEDF), a joint venture between the World Zarathushti Chamber of Commerce (WZCC) and the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America. Their donation will be released over a 10-year period in equal instalments of $ 25,000 (Rs 2 lakh) each year, noted a press release from Edul Daver, former global president of WZCC.
Shahnaaz and Ronnie Irani
The donation will be primarily utilized for the ZEDF Scholar Loan program that provides interest-free loans for graduate studies with a focus on entrepreneurship. It will henceforth be known as the "Ronnie K. Irani and Family ZEDF Loan Scholar Award.” The excess funds will be utilized for ZEDF’s Entrepreneurship Loan program that offers funds to upcoming entrepreneurs. "Encouraging and enabling students to become successful entrepreneurs and leaders has been and continues to be of significance for me,” stated Ronnie when responding to queries from Parsiana.
Founder and chief executive officer of RKI Energy Resources, LLC a privately held energy company headquartered in Oklahoma City, "over the years Ronnie has given countless hours of his time and tens of millions of dollars to charitable causes, philanthropic institutions and multiple universities. His passion to help others with his time and money spans wide from medical research and rehab, to students, to entrepreneurs, to the arts, to native American institutions, to mentoring at-risk youth and providing mental health programs,” added Daver.
The 68-year-old philanthropist has sought to make a difference to the lives of others by creating and funding the Ronnie K. Irani Center for Energy Solutions in the College of Engineering at Oklahoma University; RKI Center for Creation of Economic Wealth (I-CCEW) in Price College of Business; RKI Center for Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence at Oklahoma City University. "I remain passionate about working closely with students and faculty in all three centers,” stated Ronnie.
He considers I-CCEW in Price College as being "the most significant from a student impact standpoint. This program is in its second decade and has grown into an institution of national and international acclaim.” He reported that each year, I-CCEW "engages more than 100 student interns across 20+ client projects across its high-touch (involving high level of human interaction) programs, and reaches more than 500 community members through events and programming in the university and broader community.” Their clients include more than 400 start-ups and their teams have been trusted by large establishments like Exxon Mobil and Lawrence Livermore National Labs.
Yet another initiative of Ronnie’s is OKRespond, a non-profit that he formed in 2015, where more than 2,500 "at risk” young men and women have been mentored and more than 500 first responders from the police, fire and emergency services across the United States have received mental health and fitness counseling. "These programs… with our youth and our local community are showing great success and have the promise of becoming national and international models,” stated Ronnie.
Born in Bombay, his parents decided to relocate the family to Deolali when he was in the first grade. His father ran a bakery and his mother was a homemaker. "They both did a great job raising us three boys (Behram, Noshir and Ronnie),” acknowledged the youngest son who studied at St Xavier’s High School in Nasik and St Xavier’s College in Bombay from where he graduated in science. He considers his elder brother Behram as being "a very influential person in my life.”
In 1977 he proceeded to Oklahoma to do his BS and MS in petroleum engineering followed by an MBA. After 25 years of building a successful career in The New York Stock Exchange based companies, he founded his own oil company, RKI Exploration and Production, relying on his instincts and insights in finding oil and gas. In 2015 he sold the company in three tranches for $ 3.5 billion (Rs 29,429 crore). The "living legend” who features in the Oklahoma Hall of Fame has been recognized with numerous other institutional, professional and business awards. He attributes his professional and personal success to "not only the mentors I’ve been fortunate to have in my life but also the various institutions I studied at and the companies I worked for, the cities and local communities I lived in and benefitted from.”
Married to Shahnaaz for the last 40 years, Ronnie said, "My wife and our two daughters Roxanne and Natasha are my backbone. We are all very close and support each other and bounce off ideas all the time. Both our daughters have grown to be amazing young adults with an entrepreneurial spirit and a very giving heart.” While Oklahoma has been "a wonderful home for our family,” since the city has a very small number of Zoroastrians, "when our kids were little we used to participate in the events and activities at the Zoroastrian Association of Northern Texas in Dallas, about 200 miles south of Oklahoma city,” said Ronnie. He believes, "Prayers and ceremonies play an important role in staying grounded and developing inner strength. Doing meaningful work, supporting family, friends and community, and living with honesty and integrity are my drivers.”