What Real Leadership Looks Like

This is what people and key leaders had to say days after the AG Neronha case was filed.

— What I’ve Built

Before I fix Rhode Island, here’s what I’ve actually built.

2003

Founded Alliance Security — bootstrapped, no outside investors.

What it proves

Built a budget and a payroll from nothing.

How that applies to governing RI

Treat the state’s $6B+ budget like a P&L — not a blank check.

2011

Scaled to $105M+ revenue. INC 5000 #573. SBA Job Creator Award.

What it proves

Growth under fiscal discipline.

How that applies to governing RI

Get Rhode Island off the 47th-worst fiscal health ranking.

2015

Doubled Rhode Island workforce 300 → 600 in twelve months.

What it proves

Job creation is a measurable outcome.

How that applies to governing RI

Hold the Governor’s office to real employment numbers, not press releases.

2021

Founded SmartGreen Solar — $100M+ revenue, 400+ jobs in 3 years.

What it proves

Fast execution in a regulated industry.

How that applies to governing RI

Deliver Rhode Island energy independence by 2040.

2016

Mission 500 Humanitarian Award — service as a business model.

What it proves

Values drive decisions, not just profit.

How that applies to governing RI

Transparent, ethical governance you can actually see.

2026

NASDAQ Tower Recognition. National-scale credibility.

What it proves

Rhode Island work earns national attention.

How that applies to governing RI

Make Rhode Island the state other states copy.

Awards & Accolades

Recognized by people who don’t hand those out lightly.

State + Region · RI & New England
SBA Young Entrepreneur of the Year

Highest prestige award — covers both Rhode Island and the entire New England region.

National
INC 5000 #573 — Nationally

The most recognizable business ranking in America — Jay's company ranked #573 on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies nationwide.

Federal
SBA Federal Job Creator Award

Federal-level recognition directly tied to creating thousands of jobs.

Federal · US Senate
Congressional Recognition — Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse

Recognized by sitting U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse — bipartisan credibility at the highest level.

Local / Regional
PBN 40 Under Forty

Providence Business News 40 Under Forty — strong local business recognition for emerging leaders.

Humanitarian / Industry
Mission 500 Humanitarian Award

Recognizes character beyond business — showing that Jay's impact extends to humanitarian work.

State / Legal
AG Kilmartin Commendation

Commendation from former Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Kilmartin — recognition from the state's top legal authority.

— Who I Am

Beyond the resume.

Entrepreneur. Father. Golfer. Rhode Islander by choice, not by birth — which makes it mean more.

I came to Rhode Island at 15 from Mumbai — one suitcase, no connections, no roadmap. I could have built a life anywhere. I chose here. I built my first company here. I'm raising Thea, Zara, Lola, and Sunny here.

On Sundays, I go to Christchurch. I visit the Gurdwara. I read from the Quran and the Bhagavad Gita. Not because someone told me to — but because I believe God is bigger than any one door. If it's a choice between fear and faith, I choose faith.

Jay Gotra on Main Street, Rhode Island

This place isn't where I'm from. It's what I chose. And that choice made me who I am.

Now I'm asking Rhode Island to choose me back.

I’m asking you to join a movement.

Read the plans. Join the campaign.

Generational Wealth Is Not Money

Thea. Zara. Lola. Sunny.

The only legacy that actually matters.

There is a version of success that gets measured in bank accounts and balance sheets. Jay has built that version. It is not what he is most proud of. What he is most proud of is what happens at the dinner table. What gets said on a drive to school. What a child learns simply by watching how their father treats a stranger, handles a setback, or talks about a person who has nothing.

Thea, Zara, Lola, and Sunny are growing up in a home where leadership is not a title — it is a daily practice. Where service is not occasional — it is expected. Where failure is not shameful — it is information. Where faith is not seasonal — it is the foundation. That is the wealth Jay inherited from his Dad: Surinder Gotra. And that is the only inheritance he intends to pass down.

Generational wealth is not what you leave in a will. It is what you build into a person — the values, the discipline, the courage to serve something bigger than yourself. Leadership runs in this family. It always has. It always will.

I am not running for Governor despite having four kids. I am running because of them. They deserve a Rhode Island worth inheriting.
— JAY GOTRA
All four — Thea, Zara, Lola & Sunny

The next generation of Rhode Island leaders is already being raised. Right here. In this state. In this family.

The Woman Who Built the Foundation

Pramila Gotra

Mother. Immigrant. The original GRIT.

She came to America with her children, her faith, and an unshakeable belief that the life she was building was worth every sacrifice it required. She did not ask for easy. She asked for enough — enough to give her children a foundation they could build the rest of their lives on.

Pramila Gotra raised two children who became servant leaders. One runs for Governor. One heals people every day as a therapist. That is not a coincidence. That is a mother who taught her children — not with lectures, but with her life — that the purpose of strength is to lift others.

Everything Jay carries into this campaign — the faith, the resilience, the refusal to quit, the belief that one person can change the lives of thousands — he learned watching her. She is the first chapter of every story he will ever tell.

"She never told me life would be easy. She showed me it would be worth it."
— Jay Gotra
Pramila tribute slide 1

On May 8th — her birthday — Jay announced his candidacy for Governor of Rhode Island. Not as a political calculation. As a tribute.

Pramila raised her family in America with the same quiet courage she brought from India — and her children carry it forward every day.

The Man Who Chose Us

Dad

He didn't have to. He did anyway. That's what made him Dad.

When Jay's father passed away, a man stepped forward. He married Jay's mother. He adopted her children. He brought them to America — not because he had to, but because he believed in what this country could give them. That belief changed everything.

His dream was simple and enormous at the same time: that his children would learn here, grow here, and build lives that reflected everything the family had sacrificed to make possible. He planted a seed in American soil and trusted it to grow.

Through every season of Jay's life — the building years, the hard years, the years that tested everything — Dad was there. Steady. Present. The kind of support that never announces itself but is always felt. The kind of man who shows up not with answers but with presence. That is its own kind of wisdom.

"He chose us. In my family, that word — chose — means everything."
— Jay Gotra
Dad tribute slide 1

A man who chose his family is a man who understands that love is a decision, not just a feeling. Jay learned that watching him.

A Family of Servant Leaders

Gunjan Gotra

Licensed Therapist. Little Sister. The healer in the family.

While Jay was building companies, his sister Gunjan was building something just as important — a practice devoted to healing people from the inside out. For fifteen years, she has sat with individuals, teenagers, and families as a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, helping them find clarity, self-compassion, and the courage to face what frightens them most.

Gunjan specializes in working with the South Asian community — people who carry the weight of cultural expectation, generational silence, and the particular shame that comes from being told that struggle is weakness. She trained at Boston University School of Medicine and has spent her career doing the quiet, essential work that most people never see and everyone eventually needs.

She is a mother, a counselor, and a reminder that in this family, service is not a campaign platform. It is a pattern. Pramila raised two children — four years apart, worlds apart in their paths, united in their purpose — who dedicated their lives to lifting others. One through policy. One through healing. Both through showing up.

"My little sister has been changing lives one person at a time for fifteen years. That's not a small thing. That's everything."
— Jay Gotra
Gunjan tribute slide 1

The Gotra family came to America with nothing but faith and each other. Fifteen years later, one heals the mind. One will lead the state.

Roots Across the World

The Family Behind the Mission

From Mumbai to Maryland. From India to Rhode Island. From every corner of the world — they show up.

Jay's family does not fit neatly on a map. They are scattered across the United States, across India, across countries and continents — engineers and entrepreneurs, healers and homemakers, people who built lives in places most Americans have never visited. They carry different languages, different perspectives, different experiences of what this world asks of a person. And they are all, without exception, in Jay's corner.

There is something a man can do when he knows his family is behind him. He can take risks. He can absorb failure without being destroyed by it. He can get back up because he has somewhere to go back to. That unconditional support — not just from his children or his immediate family, but from an entire extended family that spans the globe — is the quiet infrastructure of everything Jay has built and everything he intends to build next.

They gave him perspective that no boardroom or campaign briefing ever could. A cousin in India who sees America from the outside. An aunt who remembers what it cost to get here. A family gathering where six languages are spoken and every single person is laughing. That is the lens Jay brings to governance — not an ideology, not a party platform, but the lived understanding of what it means to be human in more than one world at once.

"My family is everywhere. And somehow, they are always exactly where I need them."
— Jay Gotra
Family tribute slide 1

A man with roots this deep can weather any storm. Rhode Island will feel that.

What I Teach My Kids

Values Before Politics.

Before I asked Rhode Island to trust my values, I wrote them down for my own children.

Family values slide 1

These aren't rules I found online. I wrote them. I teach them. I live them. That's the standard I hold my family to — and the same standard I'll bring to the Governor's office.

— Rhode Island Runs Deep

The Roots Don't Lie.

I did not choose Rhode Island because it was convenient. I chose it at 15 — before I had anything to show for myself — and I have been building into this soil ever since. Every company. Every job. Every family I helped keep the lights on for. Every award that came back to Rhode Island because the work was done here.

Roots that deep do not get pulled up by a political cycle. They do not shift with polling numbers or party pressure. They hold. And when everything around them is uncertain — when the budget is broken and the federal funding is at risk and the people who were supposed to fix it have been in office for twenty years — that is exactly when deep roots matter most.

I am not here to visit Rhode Island. I am not here to run Rhode Island. I am here to strengthen it — the way you strengthen something you have spent your entire life growing.

I did not come here to run for Governor. I came here at 15 with nothing, and I built something. Running for Governor is just the next thing I am building. For all of us. For this state. For good.
— Jay Gotra · Candidate for Governor · 2026

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