CEO Robin Raina wins South Asian Personality of the Year Award
Alapharetta-based Robin Raina, president and chief executive officer of Ebix, Inc., won the inaugural South Asian Excellence Award in the ‘Personality of the Year’ category. The event, hosted by Sony Entertainment Television Asia and made possible with the support of sponsors Wal-Mart and Sam's Club, was held at the Waldorf Astoria in New York on May 10th.
The South Asian Personality of the Year award recognized Raina’s achievements in social service and business. After sustaining a $19 million loss in 1999, Ebix, Inc., a supplier of software and e-commerce solutions to the insurance industry, became highly profitable under Raina’s leadership. The award citation also noted Raina’s untiring work towards helping the cause of the underprivileged.
Over 400 guests, including many movers and shakers in the South Asian community, attended the black tie event. The glitzy awards ceremony was also telecast to Sony's worldwide audience in the U.S., U.K., Europe, Africa, India, the Middle East, Pakistan and Australia. The nine other categories for this award ranged from science, social service and business to sports, entertainment and literature.
A leading philanthropist, Raina has made substantial contributions to have-nots around the world. His foundation has adopted over 3500 children across the Indian subcontinent, and is currently building 6000 brick and concrete homes free of cost for the underprivileged. The foundation spends $1500-2000 to build each one.
“I dedicate this award to the hundreds of millions of underprivileged people in the world who struggle to provide their family a single meal every day,” Raina said, on receiving the award. “Poverty knows no boundaries of race, religion, color or geographies. Poverty has become the single largest religion in the world today transcending all these boundaries. The developed world and each one of us who are fortunate in terms of wealth need to make strong efforts to eradicate poverty from the world map.” Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz was quoted as saying, “I’m inspired by Robin’s work in helping the cause of the underprivileged in the Indian subcontinent.”
Raina added, “I appeal to the million of viewers watching this ceremony around the world to sponsor an underprivileged child's education or to sponsor the building of a home for an underprivileged family in some part of the world.”
Enjoyed reading Khabar magazine? Subscribe to Khabar and get a full digital copy of this Indian-American community magazine.
