Rustom Kerawalla’s Ampersand Group: Revamping India’s education ecosystem
RV Rising 
Rustom Kerawalla is recognized as one of India’s pioneering entrepreneurs. His journey as an edupreneur began in 2004 when he founded the first VIBGYOR school in Goregaon, Mumbai. Under his visionary leadership, the VIBGYOR network today has rapidly grown to 39 schools. While the journey towards establishing educational excellence began two decades ago, Rustom Kerawalla believes that in the pursuit of a nation’s development, every step in the Education-to-Work journey is crucial.
He put this thought into practice and the vision of providing quality education to individuals, regardless of socio-economic status, geography, or gender was brought to life with the birth of Ampersand Group.
As the Founder Chairman of Ampersand Group, he emphasizes, “I believe education and skill development are critical for a nation’s growth. These sectors ensure that future generations are skilled, employable, and gainfully employed, enabling them to actively contribute to the nation’s progress.”
Sustainability and Scalability
Under Rustom Kerawalla’s leadership, the vision of taking quality education to individuals across socio-economic, geographic and gender barriers was realized. Today, Ampersand Group has become a key technology and consultancy partner to the government, playing a crucial role in implementing vocational training, computer training, English language training and self-defence skill programmes across the country. It also offers skill training and school operations services to our B2C, B2B and B2G stakeholders.
It has evolved into a multi-faceted, end-to-end partner, trusted by the Government of India as a key public-private partnership (PPP) player in various education and skilling initiatives across the country.
These solutions are designed to be scalable. With a strong on-ground team at multiple touchpoints, they can be extended and replicated nationwide. Sustainability is another key pillar, with each project focused around the vision of creating meaningful impact at the individual, community, societal, and national levels.
As a tech-driven organization, Ampersand Group excels in leveraging technology to deliver improved learning outcomes across diverse socio-economic backgrounds, geographies, and abilities.
Over the years, Rustom Kerawalla has been dedicated to transforming fundamental education and skill training ecosystems to drive both national progress and intergenerational growth. Commenting on this, he says, “The goal is to develop sustainable, scalable solutions that ensure access to education, skill development, and livelihood opportunities for everyone.”
Thriving in Today’s Competition
He is of the opinion that technology plays a crucial role as the business atmosphere has changed dramatically in the last decade. Technology is the key to level the playing field, offering equal educational opportunities to children from all socio-economic and gender backgrounds.
It enables greater access and convenience, empowering students from diverse communities to start from the same point. Rustom says, “With India being home to the world’s largest youth population, our nation’s ability to deliver high-quality education and support to young people is crucial to shaping our future success.”
As for leadership qualities, he is of the opinion that adaptability, agility and empathy are key qualities that every leader should have. “A good business leader always has an eye open to anticipate the future and an ear to the ground, to correctly interpret what is the need of the hour,” he says.
Ampersand Group stands out for its commitment to ensuring equality of opportunity for young Indians throughout the entire Education-to-Work journey. This commitment extends beyond K-12 and pre-primary education to include skill development and livelihood opportunities.
