Today, Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust operates 18 regional entrepreneurship development clusters and Mentoring India task forces in 16 states
FinTech BizNews Service
Mumbai, 27 June 2026: In 1991, during a meeting with HRH The Prince of Wales, Lakshmi Venkataraman Venkatesan was struck by the impact of the Prince’s Trust in transforming the lives of young people in the UK. Determined to create a similar platform in India, she left her corporate career and, in 1992, founded the Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust (BYST) under the guidance of industry stalwarts such as Late Shri J.R.D. Tata. Her vision was simple yet powerful - to mentor and support underprivileged youth in starting their own businesses, thereby enabling them to become job creators rather than job seekers.
Lakshmi Venkataraman Venkatesan is a pioneering leader in grassroots entrepreneurship development in India. Inspired by the values of her father, former President of India Shri R. Venkataraman, she has devoted her life to empowering underserved youth to create jobs through micro-entrepreneurship.
Over the past three decades, BYST has become the first organisation to successfully replicate this youth entrepreneurship model in an emerging economy. Today, it operates 18 regional entrepreneurship development clusters and Mentoring India® task forces in 16 states, including Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Delhi NCR, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. The impact has been remarkable.
BYST has counselled over 22 lakh youth, trained 1.25 lakh young entrepreneurs, and facilitated collateral-free loans worth more than Rs. 800 crore to nearly 47,000 women- and youth-led businesses. Its grassroots entrepreneurs, known as Grampreneurs®, are guided by a network of nearly 20,000 trained and accredited mentors from City & Guilds, UK. Collectively, these entrepreneurs have generated wealth exceeding Rs. 4,700 crore, created more than 5.25 lakh jobs, and won over 109 national and international awards. Notably, more than 10% of them have achieved millionaire status. In 2007, she launched BYST’s public-private partnership model, bringing Indian and multinational corporations into every aspect of the organisation’s operations, from mentoring to funding.
She spearheaded the organisation’s digital transformation, implementing state-of-the-art IT solutions to improve efficiency and reach. The Mobile Mentoring Clinic initiative has taken expert guidance directly to rural areas, ensuring aspiring entrepreneurs in remote locations have access to the same opportunities as those in urban centres. Through corporate partnerships, BYST has also launched targeted programmes for women entrepreneurs, transgender communities and SC/STs. Under her leadership, BYST became a founding member of the Youth Business International (YBI) network.
Lakshmi has travelled extensively with HRH King Charles III, helping to establish youth entrepreneurship programmes in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Today, similar initiatives operate in 46 countries, including Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Paraguay, Barbados, Philippines, Sweden, Russia, Mongolia, and Turkey. Her contributions have been widely recognised. She has received the Shiromani Award for Human Excellence (1992) from the Minister of Human Resource Development, Government of India, the Sake of Honour Award by the Rotary Club, Chennai (1994), the CII Social Entrepreneurship Award (2001), and the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Delhi Management Association (2018) for her three decades of dedication to transforming underprivileged youth into successful entrepreneurs. Most recently, she was appointed India Ambassador for the Sustainable Markets Initiative. Through her vision and leadership, Lakshmi has shown that with the right guidance, access to resources, and belief in their own abilities, young people from even the most disadvantaged backgrounds can become engines of economic growth and social change.
