Vijaya Darshan Jeevagan

Vijaya Darshan J (VjDJ) is a fitness enthusiast and a strong sports personality with a dynamic and passionate approach towards life. He is zealous about the 3F’s; Fashion, Fitness, and Food. He is a socially responsible and a spiritual person with lots of human values.

He is a fourth-generation entrepreneur, born in Coimbatore. He did his B.E Electronics and Instrumentation from R.V College of Engineering, Bangalore. From there, he went on to pursue his Masters in Business Administration at Cardiff University, U.K.

Professional Life: Before his entrepreneurship stint, he served as a Business Development Manager for 2 years at TVS Automotive Europe (Now TVS Logistics), U.K, and with a rich family legacy in the food service industry along with his experience in managing restaurant business for over 10 years, he started Waalai Aahar (2018) & Waalai Café (2022), which is into Restaurant services, Cafés & Food Catering Services. Under him, the catering business grew in becoming the best caterers in Madurai City from a capacity to cater to a few hundreds of people to over 10,000 at a given time across the region.

He is an NLP Practitioner, does consultation on 3F’s - Food, Fashion & Fitness, and is a freelance interior specialist.

Community Services: As the saying goes, “No one has ever become poor by giving, and likewise, the real kindness is when you are ready to give up on something that you need for yourself.”

He is a frequent blood donor and has donated about 42+ units of blood (Approximately 18,000ml) so far. As the Vice Chairman of GMS foundation, he engages in various charitable works, human welfare activities on economical, social, medical, educational, and technical domains for the differently-abled. To name a few of his first-of-its-kind initiatives in Tamil Nadu:

• Tamil Nadu Para State Championship; 26th-28th Jan 2018.
• Southern States Para Sports Meet; Jan 31st – Feb 1st 2009.
• Tamil Nadu South Zone Para meet; 16th-19th Jan 2007.
• Job placement suyamvaram in Madurai for the differently-abled; 9th March 2005. 82 differently-abled were placed.
• Organized several wedding suyamvarams for the differently-abled, initiates and funds their start-ups.

Other Responsibilities Held:

• Tamil Nadu Council Member at Retailers Association of India 2022 & 2023.
• Mentor "Seed Spark" at Stanford Graduate School of Business 2022.
• National Start-up Council Member at Confederation of Indian Industry 2022.
• CII-Young Indians National Chair for Entrepreneurship 2022.
• CII-Young Indians National Chair for Accessibility 2020.
• CII-Young Indians National Chair- Branding, Communication & Digital Ecosystem 2019.
• CII-Young Indians National Vice Chair-Branding 2018.
• Chair Young Indians (CII-Yi)-Madurai Chapter 2017.

Few highlights during his tenure in CII-Yi:

• Yi had explored business opportunities in Sri Lanka and had a meeting with then Excellency Mr. President Shri. Maithripala Sirisena and cabinet ministers.
• For the first time in Indian Airports, a Gift an organ Kiosk was launched in Madurai Airport in the presence of Mr. Guruprasad Mohapatra IAS; Then Chairman Airport Authority of India.
• First Professionally organized Madurai Marathon with 2000 entries in August presence of