Steel tycoon Lakshmi Niwas Mittal is the richest Indian in the
world, with an estimated wealth of $25 billion. He resides in London, has
his company registered in the Netherlands, but still holds an Indian
passport. Although Mittal Steel was already the world's biggest steel
company, his king-sized ambitions were evident when he took over steel
giant Arcelor to create a new steel behemoth -- Arcelor-Mittal.
L N Mittal left India in the mid-1970s to start his career. He was sent to
Indonesia by his father to shut down the family's ailing steel plant and
sell the land. Instead, young Mittal saw an opportunity and turned the
plant around.
To prove that this was no fluke, Mittal acquired a 1.3 million tonne, Iscot
Steel plant in Trinidad & Tobago, which was losing $100,000 a day. One year
of Mittal-style management and it was making profits, the LN Mittal legend
was born. That move helped him get into America.
The Mexican government seeing the success that Mittal made of Iscot, asked
him to take over their ailing steel plants in 1992.
But it was not all that smooth. In 1994 Mittal had differences with his
brothers and father, and went on to form his own company. The following
year Mittal entered the European market, acquiring the 5 million tonne
Kazakh steel plant, Karmet.
Meanwhile, Mittal had listed Ispat International on the New York and
Amsterdam Stock Exchanges in 1997. Eight years later Mittal Steel became
the world's largest steel maker when he took over the US's largest steel
producer -- the International Steel Group. He then consolidated all his
steel holdings into Mittal Steel.
Ratan Tata
Ratan Naval Tata, a bachelor, is the chairman of the Tata Group,
India's most respected conglomerate. He was born into a Parsi family in
Mumbai (then called Bombay) to Soonoo and Naval Hormusji Tata on December
28, 1937.
He did a short stint with Jones and Emmons in Los Angeles, California,
before returning to India in 1962. He had earlier turned down an IBM job
offer.
He joined the family business in 1962 and worked with many of his group's
companies. He took over as group chairman from the legendary J R D Tata in
1991.
Since then, he has been instrumental in boosting the fortunes of the Tata
Group, which has amongst the largest market capitalisations in the Indian
stock markets.
Tata Motors developed the Tata Indica in 1998. This was the first 'entirely
Indian' passenger car. Ratan Tata's dream now is to manufacture a car
costing just Rs 100,000.
Ratan Tata holds a degree in Architecture and Structural Engineering from
Cornell University. He has also done the Advanced Management Program from
Harvard Business School in 1974-1975.
Ratan Tata was honoured with one of India's highest civilian awards, the
Padma Bhushan, on January 26, 2000.
Mukesh D Ambani
Mukesh Ambani, the chairman and managing director of India's
largest private sector enterprise -- Reliance Industries Limited -- was
born on April 19, 1957.
His father, the legendary Dhirubhai Ambani, was then a small businessman
who later on rose to become one of the legends of Indian industry.
Mukesh joined Reliance Industries in 1981 and was the brain behind
Reliance's backward integration from textiles into polyester fibres and
into petrochemicals. During the process of backward integration, Mukesh
Ambani led the creation of 51 new, world-class manufacturing facilities
involving diverse technologies that raised Reliance's manufacturing
capacities manifold.
The world's largest grassroots petroleum refinery at Jamnagar is his
brainchild. He was also the in-charge of Dhirubhai's dream project Reliance
Infocomm. But after the split in the Reliance Empire, Reliance Infocomm
went to his brother Anil.
Mukesh Ambani is now planning to enter retail sector in a big way and will
launch a chain of 'Reliance Fresh' retail stores. He also entered into an
agreement with the Haryana government to establish a Special Economic Zone
with an investment running into billions of rupees.
He has a bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from University of
Bombay and a master's in Business Administration from Stanford University,
USA.
Nandan Nilekani
Nandan Nilekani is the CEO and managing director of Infosys
Technologies. He, along with N R Narayana Murthy and five others,
co-founded India's IT jewel, Infosys.
Born in Bangalore to Durga and Mohan Rao Nilekani, he graduated from the
Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.
After graduation, he met Narayana Murthy, who then led Patni Computer
Systems's software group, seeking a job. Murthy hired the young engineer.
That was the beginning of a relationship that was to create Indian
corporate history.
Three years later, seven enthusiasts (including Nandan) decided to start
their own outfit (Infosys Technologies Ltd) with Murthy in the lead. Their
decision rewrote the domestic software industry of India.
He became the chief executive officer of Infosys in March 2002. He now
leads the company with Narayana Murthy having retired in August 2006.
He is married to Rohini, an English-language novelist, and they have two
children: daughter Janhavi and son Nihar. He speaks Konkani at home.
In 2006, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India. He is
regarded by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the
world in its issue of May 2006.
Azim H Premji
Azim Hashim Premji, the chairman of Wipro Technologies, is one of
the richest Indians. He is an icon among Indian businessmen, especially in
the software industry.
Born on July 24, 1945, Premji was studying Electrical Engineering at
Stanford University, USA when due to the sudden demise of his father, he
was called upon to handle the family business at the age of 21.
Wipro was then Western Indian Vegetable Products, a small cooking oil
company. Premji diversified into bakery fats, ethnic ingredient based
toiletries, hair care soaps, baby toiletries, lighting products and
hydraulic cylinders. And then shifted focus from soaps to software.
He transformed Wipro into one of India's most successful IT companies.
Under Azim Premji's stewardship, Wipro has grown from a fledgling Rs 70
million oil company into an IT giant with a turnover of $2.4 billion and an
employee strength of 57,000.
Azim Premji has regularly featured in the Forbes' list of the world's
richest people. He was also rated among the world's 100 most influential
people by the Time magazine.
In 2005, the Indian government honoured him with Padma Bhushan, one of the
nation's highest civilian awards.
Anil D Ambani
The fourth richest Indian today, with a net worth of about $13.5 billion,
Anil Ambani is chairman of Reliance Communications, Reliance Capital,
Reliance Energy and Reliance Natural Resources Limited.
Before the Reliance empire split, he was vice chairman and managing
director of Reliance Industries Limited. The Reliance group was founded by
his late father Dhirubhai Ambani.
Anil was born on June 4, 1959. He joined Reliance in 1983, two years after
his elder brother Mukesh, as co-chief executive officer. He is credited
with leading India's foray into overseas capital markets with international
public offerings of global depositary receipts, convertibles and bonds. He
also directed RIL's efforts to raise $2 billion from global markets.
Anil was elected as an independent Member of the Rajya Sabha with the
support of the Samajwadi Party, but resigned on March 25, 2006.
Ambani who was once ridiculed for being overweight at a shareholder' s
meeting is now a fitness freak and runs the Mumbai marathon regularly.
He has a bachelor's degree in Science from the University of Bombay and a
master's in Business Administration from The Wharton School at the
University of Pennsylvania.
He is married to former Bollywood actress Tina Munim.
Sunil Mittal
Sunil B Mittal is chairman and managing director of Bharti group.
Bharti is India's largest GSM-based mobile phone service.
Son of a politician, he built his Bharti group, along with two siblings,
into India's largest mobile phone operator in just ten years. Vodafone and
SingTel both own stakes in recently renamed flagship Bharti Airtel. The
group also has partnerships with Axa for insurance and with the Rothschild
family for exporting fruits and vegetables. He plans to go into retailing
along with the world's largest retailer Wal-Mart.
The 49-year-old has always been a pioneer. A first generation entrepreneur,
he started his first business in 1976 with a capital investment of Rs
20,000. He decided not to be a politician and set up a small bicycle
business in Ludhiana. By 1979, Sunil Mittal realised that his ambitions
could not be fulfilled in Ludhiana, so he moved out to Mumbai. He initially
founded a number of trading concerns, and established the first company to
manufacture push button telephones in India.
In 1982, Mittal started a full-fledged business selling portable generators
imported from Japan. He was one of the first entrepreneurs to identify the
mobile telecom business as a major growth area and launched services in
Delhi in 1995. Under his leadership the company has gone from strength to
strength.
K V Kamath
Kundapur Vaman Kamath is the managing director and CEO of
ICICI Bank, the largest private bank in India.
Kamath, born on December 2, 1947, began his career with ICICI -- the parent
body of ICICI Bank -- in 1971 and has since then worked to take ICICI
places. He has helped the financial institution evolve into a modern,
tech-savvy organisation.
He joined the project finance division of ICICI in 1971 and moved on to
different departments to gather rich experience. In 1988, he joined the
Asian Development Bank, Manila in their private sector department. He
worked in most of the developing countries in the region including China,
Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam. In May 1996, he returned to
ICICI as its managing director and chief executive officer.
He is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
Kumar Mangalam Birla
Kumar Mangalam Birla, born on June 14, 1967, is among the richest
persons in India and the eighth youngest billionaire outside India.
He is chairman of the Aditya Birla Group, one of India's largest business
groups. Some of the AV Birla group's companies are: Grasim, Hindalco,
UltraTech Cement, Aditya Birla Nuvo and Idea Cellular.
He took over as chairman of the group in 1995, at the age of 28, after the
sudden demise of his father, Aditya Birla.
When he took charge, there were doubts about his ability to handle the
giant business house, but he proved all naysayers wrong.
In the 11 years that he has led the group, he has won admiration,
recognition and praise for his management acumen and contribution to the
industry.
Under his leadership, the group has consolidated its position in existing
businesses and ventured into cellular telephony, asset management, software
and BPO.
He is a chartered accountant and also holds an MBA from the London Business
School.
Rahul Bajaj
Rahul Bajaj is the chairman of the Bajaj Group, which ranks among
the top 10 business houses in India. He is one of India's most
distinguished business leaders and internationally respected for his
business acumen and entrepreneurial spirit.
He took over the reins of Bajaj group in 1965. Under his leadership, the
turnover of the Bajaj Auto the flagship company has risen from Rs 72
million to Rs 46.16 billion. The initiation of liberalisation in India
posed great challenges for Bajaj Auto. Liberalisation brought the threat of
cheap imports and FDI from top companies like Honda. Rahul Bajaj became
famous as the head of the Bombay Club, which opposed liberalisation.
The scooter sales plummeted as people were more interested in motorcycles
and the rival Hero Honda was a pioneer in it. The recession and stock
market collapse of 2001 hit the company hard and it was predicted that the
days of Bajaj Auto were numbered.
However, Bajaj Auto re-invented itself, established a world-class factory
in Chakan, invested in R&D and came up with Bajaj Pulsar Motorcycle. Bajaj
Pulsar is currently a leader in its segment.
Recently, Rahul Bajaj was elected to Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra.
He is an alumnus of Harvard, St. Stephen's and Cathedral.
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