A life
built on
purpose.

Educationist · Entrepreneur · Believer · Sports Enthusiast · Adventure Seeker · Optimist · Stoic · World Citizen · Author in Progress

Dreams are not always born in a vacuum. At times they are handed to you, in pieces, across generations, by people whose names you carry and whose hopes you inherit without always knowing you have done so.

Sujay Jairaj, Air & Shadow

I have been fortunate to be involved in building institutions. It is something I love.

Four generations of the Narsee Monjee family’s legacy in Indian education run through everything I do. As Trustee of Jamnabai Narsee School and Jamnabai Narsee International School, Chairperson of Chatrabhuj Narsee School, and through my education operations company, MAX Edusol, I oversee the education of more than 30,000 students every year across Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

JNS and JNIS are legacy institutions: my school of learning and my lifelong commitment. I have been part of Jamnabai Narsee School since 2004, through its continued growth, the development of JNIS and the establishment of JNS GIFT City in Gandhinagar. Shri Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat, handed me the MOU for GIFT City at the Vibrant Gujarat Summit in January 2013. The school opened in 2015 as Gujarat’s first Green Building GOLD certified school and the first school in India’s first smart city.

Chatrabhuj Narsee School was founded in 2016 on a blank 3.5-acre campus in Kandivali, in association with Methibai Devraj Gundecha Foundation — a school Minal and I built from the ground up. CNS has grown into one of Mumbai’s foremost international schools, now with a massive 6.5-acre campus in Pune and a new campus in Indore.

In 2016, Minal and I opened Chatrabhuj Narsee School on a blank 3.5-acre campus in Kandivali, in association with the Methibai Devraj Gundecha Foundation: a school we built from the ground up. Ten years on, CNS is one of Mumbai’s foremost international schools, with a 6.5-acre campus in Pune and a new campus in Indore.

Through MAX Edusol, I design, develop, operate and manage schools, and have been associated with more than 20 institutions across India. Through the Urvashi Foundation, I support schools for the underprivileged in remote locations and help them develop and upgrade. Through NOVA Centre for Excellence, I am building a model that brings high-performance sport and academic rigour together in one institution.

I also serve on the Executive Committee and Governing Council of Dr. Balabhai Nanavati Hospital, Mumbai.

I completed my graduation at Narsee Monjee College of Commerce and Economics and my Master’s in International Management at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, where I was the youngest President of the Management Consulting Club and Sports Convenor for the halls of residence.

Beyond education, my love of badminton led me to produce Saina (2021), the Saina Nehwal biopic streaming on Amazon Prime Video worldwide. I have written and produced two original songs: Quintessentially You, for our inter-school festival Quintessence, and Stand Together Hand in Hand, written during a time of global conflict. I founded Mumbai Cycling Enthusiasts, now 30,000+ members strong and one of the world’s largest fitness cycling communities. I am a former national-level badminton player, an advanced skier and an aspiring national-level pistol shooter.

In 2020, I completed Harvard Business School’s Leading Schools programme and HarvardX’s The Architectural Imagination. Both are part of a lifelong practice of learning that continues with new programmes every year.

I live by five words: Dream. Believe. Pursue. Achieve. Serve.

A student of Stoic philosophy, discovered through living honestly. The conviction that the space between stimulus and response is where a life is shaped, and that a dream carries weight and must be revisited often. A daily formula to match: Work. Workout. Family. Chill.

“It is the passion, the obsession, the drive for the love of what
you are doing that will make you get up each day with the
aim to achieve your goals.”

— Sujay Jairaj

— Sujay Jairaj

A dream is not a wish. A wish is passive: you hold it at a comfortable distance and hope circumstances will arrange themselves in its favour. A dream has weight, and responsibility, and the constant pressure of something not yet realised pushing against the inside of your chest, asking when you are going to do something about it.

Revisit the dream often. Not to see whether it has been achieved, which is the wrong question, but to see whether it still belongs to you. Whether it is still genuinely yours, as opposed to a dream placed on you by someone else’s definition of success.

“If there was ever a moment to follow your passion
and do something that matters — that moment is
now.”

— Sujay Jairaj

The Pentagon Philosophy

Five words.
One life.

A philosophy distilled from everything built, lost, learned and lived. A practice to inhabit every day: in every decision, every institution and every relationship, these five words are the compass.

Sujay Jairaj is regularly invited to speak at education conferences, leadership summits, sports forums and entrepreneurship events across India. Two versions of his bio are provided below for use in event programmes, introductions and digital platforms.