Jeroninio Francisco Torquato Almeida

Jeroninio Francisco Torquato Almeida (Jerry Almeida) (born 23 November 1970) is an Indian Management Consultant, social activist, Social Entrepreneur, Fundraiser, and Philanthropist.
Early life
Jerry was born in Goa to Betty Lucia Torquato Almeida and Wilfred Simon Almeida on 23 November 1970. He spent his infant days in Goa and early years in Bombay with his parents. He is an alumnus of St. Xavier’s High School Fort and has been a Xavier’s alumni through his college and B-school days.
Early career
Having started his working career with selling space in Indian Express, he then moved to brand management and business planning with ITC Ltd after his graduation. After 2 years with ITC limited where he ideated for the brand relaunch of Gold Flake, Almeida moved to start up a new venture in India called Allure cosmetics which a licensee then and has now become L’Oreal India. He was responsible for the launch of Ultra Doux shampoo range in India and other products from the L’Oreal stable. In the meanwhile the ventures he had started in advertising & experiential marketing had become very successful and in 1995 at the behest of his co-founders Almeida took over as the CEO of Target Direct & Integrated Ltd (TDIL) and started consolidating the business. The business by then had expanded into movie marketing which they pioneered in India and event designing with big ticket events like Sound of The Sea, Stereo Nation national 6 city tour, Bony M, Celebrity Cricket and Music for Life. After Almeida took over he created a whole lot of event properties and most of them were charitable fundraisers. Through TDIL Almeida also designed the BMG Rocketeria - ROCKONTEST to scout for rock bands MTV VJ hunt, MTV Bathroom Singer and (which were the first reality shows in India way back in 1995), and the MTV Youth Icon ideas. Almeida also created the concept for the Magic Box on Jet airways and the Charity starts on the home page online auction for eBay & Chivas. In 1997 Almeida and his partners merged TDIL with an American advertising conglomerate and Almeida then ventured into dotcoms. He created a series of dotcoms which included the fastest email service with unlimited space, a dating portal, a matchmaking portal and a talent hunt portal for music & acting talent. After the dotcom bust in 1999 Almeida moved on from Bombay to Delhi with a new start up in media & entertainment that had a charter of producing & distributing movie/ music albums in partnership with Hollywood studios and international labels like EMI, and creating a satellite cinema franchise. After investing 2 years to build this business, Almeida made his exit in 2002 and decided to hang his boots in the business for profit sector and followed his heart to move into the voluntary and social activism sector.
Activist
Almeida joined ActionAid India Society as the International Director - Fundraising and CEO in January 2002. He used all his experience and acumen to create a paradigm shift in the way NGOs worked. He introduced cutting edge concepts like face to face fundraising in India and launched the JOY OF GIVING movement in 2003 with an innovative idea called Karm Mitra which is now a case study in fundraising across the world,. In 2004 after knowing that the sector is full of charlatan organisation he founded iCONGO- the Confederation of NGOs to promote best practices in the NGO sector and encourage citizen action for social justice, good governance and communal harmony. iCONGO’s founding principle was that they would never take any grant or donation nor keep any percentage of funds raised by them for member NGOs and in 7 years iCONGO has made good with the promise and has sustained purely on earned revenues from consulting & training fees.
Social Entrepreneur
Through iCONGO Almeida has launched various movements, campaigns, initiatives & social ventures and over the years has raised over 150 mn USD for various member NGOs. Some of the initiatives are listed on www.icoXchange.com and are as given below.
*www.idishoom.com : The 1st people reporting & whistle blowing news/views portal which emerged much before wiki leaks in 2007 was profiled by a national newspaper as the changing face of activism. iDishoom is a powerful media and was hacked because it had strong stories on various rogue companies. It is now being relaunched with a dedicated server and mirror sites.
*www.congoshongo.com : The 1st eCommerce portal to promote grassroots NGO, artisan and craftspeople. The B2B model is operational and they plan to start the B2C model soon.
*www.iCODEVGURUKUL.com : A capacity building and training institute in partnership with SKILLSHARE INTERNATIONAL. Training for leadership in businesses, civil society organisations and B-schools where every person is trained to work ethically keeping in focus the planet and people while they can keep making profits.
*www.righteverywrong.com : An effort to create attitudinal/ behavioral change in people to understand their role and responsibility as citizens where they perform their fundamental duties to encourage social justice with their citizen action. This movement was the genesis of the INDIVIDUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY concept.
*www.karmaveer.com : The global awards for social justice and citizen action launched in partnership with the UN and various other partners.
Personal life
Almeida is now working on his 2 books to be published by an international publishing brand in 2012. The books are called “Karma Kurry for the mind, body, heart & soul” and “Leading a mission with a mau5 … a deadmau5!!!” and lives in Gurgaon, India. He is married to Jugnu Grewal Almeida who is in the real estate business and two sons, Zorawar Wilfred Singh Almeida (7 years old) and Ransher Wilfred Singh Almeida (6 months old).

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