Mahesh Ramanathan

Executive Producer, Producer

Mahesh Ramanathan was formerly the founder & Chief Operating Officer of Reliance Entertainment, the film production arm of India’s Reliance Group - a top three private sector business house in India on all major financial parameters, with assets in excess of US $ 30 billion and net worth in excess of US $ 15 billion.

Across different companies, the Reliance group has a customer base of over 100 million, the largest in India, and a shareholder base of over 12 million, among the largest in the world.

Through its products and services, the Reliance Group touches the life of 1 in 10 Indians every single day. It has a business presence that extends to over 20000 towns and 0.5 million villages in India, and 5 continents across the world.

Mahesh is a management graduate from IIM-Ahmedabad, India’s premier business school. He is one of India’s most successful movie studio executives having produced, marketed and distributed a diverse slate of 113 films worldwide to date, in 10 languages across all genres. Under his leadership, Reliance Entertainment grew from a start-up to one of India’s leading movie studios within 8 years. Mahesh has strong working relationships in the Indian film industry having collaborated with 78 film makers and almost all the big & active stars of India cinema.

Production credits include the popular “Singham” (“The Lion”) franchise which ranks amongst the top grossing Indian films taking over US $ 80 million worldwide.

Mahesh has marketed & distributed worldwide some of the highest grossing Indian films of all time – “3 Idiots” (US $ 80 million),”Bodyguard” (US $ 53 million), “Don-2” (US $ 54 million), Holiday (US $ 40 million).

Mahesh’s productions for Reliance Entertainment have won an impressive 28 National Film awards up until 2014 (President of India’s Golden & Silver Lotus Awards). National Films awards are the highest honour for films in India. This is the one of the highest award accolades for any film studio in India in a span of 7 years.

Mahesh was also involved in the production of India's first full length animation feature "Hanuman" which was a box office success and had a transformational impact on the Indian animation industry.

Mahesh has been instrumental in opening non-traditional markets for Indian films abroad with major theatrical releases in China, Japan, South Korea and Latin America. His films have been screened in over 100 prestigious international film festivals across 45 world cities.