After his undergraduate degree in business administration and industrial engineering, Onkar worked as a salesman in
Riverside, California working on estimates for different government contracts for about six months. He then worked for Abbey Etna Machine Company in
Perrysburg, Ohio on the shop floor. The president of Etna Company after discussions with the Kanwar family and looking at the perseverance of Onkar invested money to start a new pipe factory in India. Kanwar has grown Apollo Tyres from a small single-plant Indian company into a multinational with seven plants worldwide, and annual revenues in excess of US$3 billion. In June 2013, it was reported that Apollo Tyres would buy US-based
Cooper Tire & Rubber Company for about $2.5 billion in a deal that would make it the world's seventh-largest tyre maker, but the takeover collapsed after legal battles. Kanwar also owns speciality hospitals under the Artemis brand in northern India. Kanwar was the president of
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry for 2004-05. He is the chairman of the
BRICS Business Council, India which was established during the Fifth BRICS Summit held in March 2013 in Durban, South Africa. Kanwar is the recipient of an
Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for India, in the manufacturing category in 2012. In October 2018, Kanwar was awarded ‘
Order of Merit’ of Hungary, in recognition of his work towards strengthening Hungarian-Indian economic relations through the company’s investment in Hungary, thereby helping create new jobs in Hungary In November 2018, Kanwar was conferred with Japanese honour '
Order of the Rising Sun', Gold and Silver Star. The honor, awarded by Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe in the presence of
Emperor Akihito, was in honor of Kanwar’s contributions towards strengthening the economic relations between Japan and India and for promoting Japanese companies’ entry into the Indian market. ==Personal life==