Has life changed for him since he stepped down as Joint MD of Hero MotoCorp in August 2016? Post that Munjal, Chairman, Hero Corporate Service Pvt. Limited, who is now also spearheading the Serendipity Arts Trust a cultural initiative, says his business interests continue to keep him busy and “yes and no” is the answer to that question. He explains, “I have not moved from business to art. Not in terms of time allocation. I was never involved in day to day affairs of the company but always dealt with strategies, corporate affairs, new products, problem solving, branding, public policy and I have always been involved in cultural, educational, health initiatives for many years now. So, I continue to do that but now it’s more public.  I have been working on this cultural festival of the Serendipity Trust for some time now. Art is not something new. I have a cultural foundation running in Ludhiana very successfully for last 20 years.  The Serendipity festival is planned as a very large initiative on the scale of any business venture and it requires a great deal of time and attention and resources to execute and all that I am now able to give. My interests in exploring independent businesses of course continue fully and we are interested in a number of start ups and are supporting some high quality teams.  But we don’t like to make announcements about what we do.”

Serendipity Arts Trust, is a Munjal initiative for the promotion of creativity and imagination in arts and culture but Sunil Munjal points out that it is not called Hero but the Serendipity Arts Festival. “We are looking to include as many partners as possible. It will be India’s premier, curated, interdisciplinary arts festival. This year it was held in Goa from December 16 – 23, 2016. An annual event, it aims to encourage the evolving arts community, promote a culture of patronage and create value for the arts, thus ensuring India’s place in the global cultural dialogue. We have the best heritage in the world but though in last 30 years we have done amazing stuff in improving economy, in international relations and defending ourselves yet we have clearly not done enough for our arts and culture. Most art assets are managed by govt, but there is need for private initiative to come in and support big initiatives in culture just as they have done in healthcare and education for instance.  We need patronage of HNI’s and philanthropists to look at art and culture, at the moment there is not enough of that happening in India. I hope with cooperation from like minded the festival will grow in scale and discipline.”

“My daughter Shefali is very involved with the insurance distribution company which she runs very successfully. It is the largest distributor of insurance in India. She is also very artistically inclined and is a keen photographer. What she chooses to do depends on her and presently she is very enthusiastic about Serendipity and is involved with the design, vision and venue (she loves Goa) aspects of the festival. My wife Mukta is a musician but she is less involved with this project. “