Mehta, Renu

Renu Mehta is the founder of Fortune Forum, a network that unites philanthropists, celebrities, politicians, and business leaders to target global poverty, environmental issues, and disease.

Mehta, daughter of Indian textiles mogul Vijay Mehta, left what she described as a comfortable job with her family's business to devote her efforts to philanthropic causes. In collaboration with Nobel Prize-winning economist Sir James Mirrlees, she has proposed the Mehta/Mirrlees (MM) Model, a fiscal incentive that matches private donations with government money in order to meet the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals. The MM Model has been endorsed by an impressive list of luminaries including three Nobel laureates in economics.

Mehta grew up in London, the spoiled youngest child and only daughter in a wealthy family. She credits her parents’ inculcating Gandhi's ideas for her spiritual values and her brother Vimal, born with Down's syndrome, for making her sensitive to others. Her first ambition was to work in fashion, and with that goal in mind, she studied at the London College of Fashion. In her early 20s, she spent 18 months as a model, but found it boring. She worked as head of design at Sphere, the fashion arm of the family business. Her job included travel to Milan and Paris and left ample time to party at the trendiest clubs.

At 35, she found that her life lacked meaning. Her first attempt at conquering her ennui was a charity event she organized in three weeks. The event, held at a members-only London nightclub, boasted attendees such as Eric Clapton and Jools Holland and raised £100,000. Its success convinced Mehta to resign from her job and pursue her new interest. Her father advised her to spend a year reading about issues. She read one book, The World Ahead, by Federico Mayor. Determined to do something to address the problem Mayor's book had awakened her to, Mehta established the Fortune Forum with half a million dollars of her own money.