Founder
Founder
Venkatasamy Jagannathan
Star Health
“When we started StarHealth, our aspiration was to meet the average citizen’s need to manage healthcare expenses. As we’ve grown, the work has become so much more meaningful: it’s personal, compassionate and touches so many lives.“
- Partnered in: 2010
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Focus areas:
- Healthcare
About Venkatasamy
Born to an agrarian family in the village of Nagampatti, in what is now the Tuticorin district, Venkatasamy Jagannathan got his start in insurance as a trainee officer in 1969. For forty years he steadily climbed the ranks, becoming the Chairman and Managing Director of United India, a position he held until his retirement in 2004.
During those years he witnessed both the rising Indian middle class and the increasing corporatization of healthcare, and was struck with an idea to make quality health care easily accessible and affordable to everyday people. In 2006 he took his retirement savings and started StarHealth and Allied Insurance Company Limited, India’s first standalone health insurance company. In 2021, it was listed on national stock exchanges.
Venkat credits his success to his strategy of hiring a range of talent, supporting their growth as individuals, and instilling a strong “family culture” across the organization, now over 12,000 strong.
