About
To produce world-class arts and literary festivals at scale, making the arts commercially sustainable while projecting Indian culture globally.
Teamwork Arts is India's largest producer of arts and literary festivals - a for-profit production company that designs, curates and operates over 30 festivals a year across the performing, visual and literary arts. It is best known as the producer of the Jaipur Literature Festival, the world's largest free literary gathering, and operates a global circuit of festivals alongside a film and television production business.
Founded in 1989 by Sanjoy K. Roy as a film and television house, Teamwork grew into a festival-production company organised around independent verticals - dance, literature, music and international festivals — each working with a local partner in the cities it operates in.
Its breakout was the Jaipur Literature Festival, which it turned into a global brand (a 2012 visit by Oprah Winfrey helped cement its international profile) and then exported as touring editions across the world. Around JLF it built a portfolio of 30-plus festivals in dozens of cities and countries, plus touring stage productions and television work. Roy's organising idea is explicit and commercial: the arts can create tangible wealth, and festivals can be both a paying proposition and a vehicle for soft power.
Founding & Leadership
Sanjoy K. Roy, an "entrepreneur of the arts," co-founded Teamwork in 1989 as a film and television production house and built it into India's leading cultural-festival producer. A St Stephen's philosophy graduate and former member of Barry John's Theatre Action Group, he has produced over 1,000 hours of film and TV and won the National Award for Best Director for Shahjahanabad: The Twilight Years. He is the producer of the Jaipur Literature Festival, co-chairs FICCI's Art & Culture Committee, and is a founder-trustee of the Salaam Baalak Trust for street children. His stated philosophy - "making the arts a paying proposition" while "building brand India" - captures the commercial-cultural model Teamwork is built on.
Privately held company (Teamwork Arts Pvt. Ltd.).
Leadership & Trustees
Initiatives & Portfolio
The flagship - the world's largest free literary festival, held annually in Jaipur, with a global roster of writers, thinkers and performers.
Touring editions of JLF across cities including London, New York, Spain and more, exporting the format globally.
International puppetry festival in New Delhi.
Multi-arts festival of Indian culture staged in Hong Kong.
Festival of Indian arts and culture in Australia.
Festival in Johannesburg and Durban exploring India–South Africa cultural ties.
Festival of Indian culture in Chicago and Seattle.
India's leading theatre awards and festival, produced for Mahindra.
A touring musical stage production with sold-out shows across Europe and South Africa.
The company's original business - over 1,000 hours of films, documentaries and TV across drama, lifestyle and current affairs.
Impact & Metrics
Partnerships & Network
Partner institutions
Government partners
Funders & patrons
International festival co-productions; brand and government commissions; touring partnerships.
Credentials & Compliance
CSR-eligible · Not applicable (for-profit)
Teamwork Arts is a for-profit private company, so charitable-sector credentials (80G, 12A, CSR-1, FCRA) do not apply. It cannot receive tax-deductible donations or CSR grants as a recipient. Financials are filed with the MCA but not publicly disclosed. The right engagement model is commercial - sponsorship, co-production or partnership - not philanthropy.
Not a CSR recipient. As a for-profit producer, Teamwork is typically the implementation partner for others' CSR/sponsorship-funded cultural events, rather than a grantee itself.
Recognition
Producer of the Jaipur Literature Festival, widely described as the world's largest free literary festival; founder Sanjoy K. Roy is a National Award-winning director.
[Atlas Assessment] Teamwork Arts reshaped India's cultural calendar. By turning the Jaipur Literature Festival into a global brand and replicating the festival model across dozens of cities, it proved that large-scale, ambitious arts programming could be commercially viable in India — and it built an export pipeline for Indian culture abroad. Its significance is as much economic as artistic: it helped create a professional festival industry where little existed.
Teamwork's reach, longevity and production capability are genuinely impressive, and JLF's cultural footprint is hard to overstate. But it must be read for what it is: a for-profit company whose purpose is commercial. Its cultural impact is real but instrumental — a by-product of a paying proposition, not a charitable mission — which is why it scores high on reach and craft and more moderately on mission-driven impact and ecosystem stewardship. For a funder or partner, the implications are practical: you do not grant to Teamwork, you sponsor, commission or co-produce with it. Its dependence on Sanjoy Roy and the opacity typical of a private company are the main institutional caveats.