At a time when economies are under pressure to create jobs at scale, Ajay Kela is leading one of the more structured efforts to make that happen. As President and CEO of the Wadhwani Foundation, Kela is focused on execution, building pathways for people to access meaningful, family-sustaining work rather than just talking about policy.
Kela’s journey reflects a broader idea of giving back. Like the Foundation’s founder Romesh Wadhwani, he built a successful career abroad before choosing to return and apply his experience to a larger development mission. Today, he drives the Foundation’s goal of enabling five million dignified jobs and equipping 25 million people with job-ready skills by 2030.
Under his leadership, the Foundation has scaled its work across multiple fronts. It supports startups and small businesses through the Wadhwani Entrepreneur Network, prepares youth for employment through skilling initiatives, turns research into real-world innovation, and works with governments to enable AI-led digital transformation. The focus is not just on opportunity, but on access, ensuring that growth reaches those who need it the most.
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In this exclusive conversation with The American Bazaar, Kela talks about what it takes to build impact at scale, the role of technology in closing opportunity gaps, and why long-term growth will depend on how effectively jobs are created.
The American Bazaar: How do you define and measure “dignified family wage jobs” in different economic contexts across India?
Dr. Ajay Kela: We have always believed that meaningful philanthropy doesn’t give people a fish; it teaches them how to fish. How this translated for us at Wadhwani Foundation is that we don’t view a job as just an economic outcome; it is also dignity. It is the difference between surviving and building for yourself, your children, and the generation after that.
That’s why, we deeply care about not just about the number of jobs, but also about their quality. A dignified family wage job is one that covers the basics: housing, education, and healthcare, while leaving room for aspiration. The exact number varies by region, even within India, but the principle doesn’t: are we enabling people to move from survival to stability, and from stability to growth?
And we don’t treat job creation as a standalone metric. We work across the full chain, helping businesses grow and create jobs, preparing individuals with the skills to fill them, and connecting talent to opportunity. We measure success not by the number of programs delivered, but by the lives genuinely changed.
With rapid technological change, how do you ensure skilling programs stay relevant and future-proof?
This was a major concern for us as well, which is why we stopped thinking in curricula and started thinking in systems. With this approach, static content becomes obsolete; dynamic systems don’t.
We use AI to continuously update content, personalize learning pathways, and align training with real-time employer demand. We stay close to employers and industry to ensure that what we teach reflects what the market needs. We also work closely with governments, both to support large-scale skilling initiatives and to feed on-ground learnings back into program design and policy. That feedback loop is critical.
At the core of it, we believe that future proofing is about building systems that adapt continuously, so that relevance is a permanent operating principle.
Was there a defining moment that made you shift from corporate success to social impact?
It was a series of events and a realization rooted in my own childhood.
I grew up with a family of six in a 350-square-foot apartment, before I got the opportunity to pursue a sponsored education in the United States. That journey, and everything that followed, changed the lives of an entire generation – my children, my nephews, my nieces. I saw firsthand what a single shift in circumstance can unlock across generations.
And it showed up again in the people around me. Deepak, my driver, years ago, was bright and hardworking. I encouraged him to acquire a few online networking certificates. While I was in my office, he’d open his loaned laptop in the parking lot. Few courses, one job referral, and his entire trajectory changed. His children are now as well-placed as my own.
Then there’s my cook, Chandu. Talented in the kitchen, but his world was small, one household, one family to feed. I encouraged him to cater dinners for our community during festivals. Small events at first. But he showed up, delivered, and word spread. Today, he caters for weddings in Bombay for up to 5,000 people. His kids, named after my kids, are no different than my kids today.
When the opportunity came knocking to create a ripple effect of change at Wadhwani Foundation, it was a no-brainer. What began as encouraging nudges to the people around me has grown into systematic change reaching tens of millions of beneficiaries across multiple countries. That is what drew me to this mission. And that is what keeps me here, even after 15 years on the job.
What has been your most personally rewarding moment at the Foundation?
Honestly? It’s never one moment. It’s accumulation.
Over 15 years, what has stayed constant is a deep sense of purpose; watching potential translating into livelihoods, and livelihoods multiplying into opportunities for others. That compounding effect, across individuals and generations, is what makes this work feel different from anything I’ve done before.
That said, one moment stands out. Being at YUGM 2025 — the national launch of the Wadhwani Innovation Network, alongside IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur, IISc Bangalore, C-CAMP, and others — and hearing [Indian Prime Minister] Modi speak about the Foundation and Dr. Wadhwani’s contributions for 10-15 minutes in his keynote address.
But more than any single event, what stays with me is knowing that this work isn’t just about creating outcomes today; it’s about building pathways that will matter for decades. That’s a rare thing to be part of.
How can the Indian diaspora move from transactional giving to transformational impact?
The diaspora’s most valuable assets go beyond just money. They are knowledge, networks, credibility, and institutional instinct.
Donations matter and play a critical role. But the larger opportunity is in helping build things that outlast any single contribution; mentorship ecosystems, research platforms, institutions that keep generating opportunity long after the initial investment.
The shift is from giving back to building forward.
At the Wadhwani Foundation, this philosophy runs deep. The Foundation is funded solely through our Founder’s personal philanthropy. Dr. Romesh Wadhwani has pledged 80% of his wealth to this mission. That independence allows us to stay focused, offer programs at no cost to beneficiaries, and operate with a long-term lens rather than short-term optics.
The most meaningful legacy the diaspora can leave is an institution. Something that continues to expand opportunity for generations who will never know your name, but whose lives will be shaped by what you helped build.
Emerging economies often lack quality data infrastructure. How does the Foundation build AI tools for these markets?
We are an AI-first organization, but we’ve learned that AI alone solves nothing.
Our Founder, Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, was applying AI across his companies long before it became a boardroom buzzword. That early-mover experience shapes how we think: technology is a force multiplier, not a magic wand.
In markets like India and other emerging economies, AI can’t wait for perfect datasets. It must be built for real-world messiness, which spreads across multiple languages, patchy connectivity, fragmented data. We use established LLM frameworks as a foundation, but what makes our systems distinctive is that our on-the-ground program data continuously trains and refines commercial LLMs for our needs, making them sharper, more context-aware, and more adaptive over time.
Crucially, we never deploy AI in isolation. It’s always embedded within human systems; educators, employers, mentors, and domain experts are all available both offline and online through our GenieAI platform. That’s what makes it work.
The recent India AI Impact Summit reinforced something we already believed: India has the capability. What it needs is AI designed to be inclusive, practical, and rooted in real use cases. That’s exactly what we’re building.
How has the experience of being an immigrant in America shaped your leadership style and your approach to building institutions?
It confirmed what I had always suspected: your success has far less to do with how talented you are, and far more to do with the ecosystem around you.
As an immigrant, you feel that acutely – the power of access to education, mentorship, networks, and institutions. And you equally feel its absence when it isn’t there.
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That experience is foundational to how I lead and how I think about building institutions. The question I keep coming back to is: how do we make opportunities less accidental and more accessible and equitable, so that talent can find its way forward.
Young Indians today are leaving in record numbers for education, for opportunity, for a better quality of life. As someone who made that journey yourself, any messages for them?
Global exposure is genuinely valuable; it sharpens perspective, builds networks, and raises the bar for what you believe is possible. With the world of work becoming increasingly interconnected, global exposure will better align you with what’s needed to excel.
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But here’s what’s also true: the India of today is not the India many left behind. The scale of opportunity being built right now is unprecedented. With the right technology, systems, and support, it is increasingly possible to build world-class institutions, companies, and careers without leaving.
My message is simple: go where you can grow the most but think seriously about how you bring that growth back, and what you can help create. The most exciting chapter of India’s story is still being written.
The Wadhwani Foundation works across four pillars — Entrepreneurship, Skilling, Innovation & Research, and Government Digital Transformation. How do these four actually talk to each other in practice?
There are four pillars under one integrated system. Think of it this way – skilling prepares people for jobs. Entrepreneurship creates those jobs. Innovation and research build the industries and jobs of the future. Government digital transformation delivers access at scale.
Together, they form a complete pathway: from learning, to earning, to creating. If we remove any one piece from this equation, we’re left with only a program. But when we keep it integrated, we have an ecosystem.
That systems-level thinking is what allows us to move beyond isolated interventions and drive impact at scale across India and other emerging economies, reaching tens of millions of beneficiaries through our combined work.