Datuk Vinod Balachandra Sekhar is president and group chief executive of Petra Group and Chairman of the Sekhar Foundation, based in Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the second largest city in Malaysia by population. The city proper, making up an area of , has a population of 1.4 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million...

. He is also the CEO of Green Rubber. He was named by Forbes Magazine as Malaysia's 16th richest man for 2008.

Early and family life

Vinod Sekhar was born on 6 August 1968; his father was the late Tan Sri Dr. B.C. Sekhar, also known as Mr. Natural Rubber who provided for a time significant leadership to the global natural rubber industry.

While in college, he started a non-partisan multiracial youth organization, Malaysiana Muda. He remained President of MM for two terms and stood down having built it into the largest multiracial youth organization at the time.

Sekhar is an alumnus of Haileybury and Imperial Service College

Haileybury and Imperial Service College

Haileybury and Imperial Service College, , is a prestigious British independent school founded in 1862. The school is located at Hertford Heath, near Hertford, from central London, on of parkland occupied until 1858 by the East India College...

. and writes broadly - for instance

Mr. Sekhar is married with two children Tara and Petra, after whom his business is named. He currently lives in Kuala Lumpur.