Top 10 Businessmen in India

There are many prosperous businesspeople and executives who have made important contributions to the Indian national economy. Many of them still reside in India's diversified and vibrant business community. They have made themselves wealthy, given thousands of other jobs, and elevated India to a major role on the world stage in several industries. These businessmen are role models for up-and-coming businesses and have significantly contributed to the Indian economy.

Following are the top ten business people of India who are famous for their vision, inventiveness, and contribution in many fields:

Mukesh Ambani

Mukesh Ambani, the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, is the wealthiest businessman in India, with a net worth of more than $100 billion. Additionally, he also oversees various Jio Platforms as chairman. Since its public introduction on September 5, 2016, Reliance's Jio has climbed to the top of the nation's telecommunications services. Through the investments made by his firms in several industries, including telecommunications, retail, and petrochemicals, Ambani has significantly contributed to the expansion of the Indian economy.

He began assisting his father, Dhirubhai Ambani, in managing Reliance Industries Limited, the family business, in 1981. It had already grown by this point and was now involved in petrochemicals and refining. The enterprise also offered goods and services to the retail & telecommunications sectors. Reliance Retail Ltd., another subsidiary, is also considered one of India's biggest retailers.

Ambani has continually held the distinction of India's wealthiest person in Forbes magazine many times (for ten years in a row), and as of 2016, he was also listed as the 36th richest person in the world.

Gautam Adani

The Adani Group, one of the biggest corporations in India, is led by Gautam Adani, who also serves as its chairman. With a net worth of over $70 billion, he is well-recognized for his interests in renewable energy, ports, logistics, and the food industry. Adani, regarded as one of the most powerful business people in the nation, has significantly impacted the infrastructure development in India through the work of his enterprises.

Adani relocated to Mumbai in 1978 to work for Mahendra Brothers while still a teen. His elder brother Mahasukhbhai Adani requested him to oversee the plastics firm he purchased in Ahmedabad in 1981. This enterprise finally served as Adani's entry point into international trade by importing polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

He began importing essential polymers for small enterprises in 1985. Adani Enterprises, the parent company of the Adani Group, first introduced Adani Export in 1988. The business first traded commodities related to agriculture & energy. He began to diversify his business into selling metals, textiles, and other agricultural items in 1991 as economic liberalization measures started to help his firm.

AMG Media Networks Limited, a division of the Adani Group, announced in August 2022 that it intended to acquire RRPR Holding, which owned 29.18% of the shares of the national news channel NDTV, and that it planned to make an open offer to purchase an additional 26% of the business. According to a statement from NDTV, Adani purchased his interest through a third party without contacting the company's founders, Radhika Roy, a former journalist, and Prannoy Roy, an economist, and the deal was completed "without discussion, consent, or notification". Adani is considered linked to the Bharatiya Janata Party, a political party that is in power under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Conversely, this bid also prompted questions about journalistic independence in India.

Kumar Mangalam Birla

One of India's leading international corporations, the Aditya Birla Group, is headed by Kumar Mangalam Birla, a millionaire businessman from India who is also a philanthropist and chartered accountant. Forbes estimates his net worth as of October 1, 2022, to be around $14 billion.

In 1995, when he was 28, and his father, Aditya Vikram Birla, had died, Birla assumed control of the Aditya Birla Group. From US$2 billion in 1995 to over US$45 billion in 2023, the group's yearly turnover has risen significantly under his leadership. The company also provides financial and telecom services. It also has holdings in cement and aluminum.

For the Aditya Birla Group, Kumar Birla unveiled a new logo in 2016. Six cement plants and five grinding units belonged to Jaiprakash Associates, which was acquired by UltraTech Cement, which Birla leads. Birla revived Applause Entertainment in the same year; it is a media, entertainment, and IP creation studio emphasizing high-end digital drama series. A deal to purchase a 51% share in the fashion house Sabyasachi was made by Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail Limited (ABFRL). Later that year, the Birla-led ABFRL and fashion designer Tarun Tahiliani partnered. To take over Reebok's operations in India and establish the market-leading sports & athletic lifestyle brand, ABFRL, and Authentic Brands Group worked together. Moreover, ABFRL purchased 51% of House of Masaba Lifestyle in January 2022.

In August 2021, Birla resigned as non-executive chairman of the telecom company Vodafone-Idea (Vi), created in 2018. This was done due to the dire financial condition of Vodafone Idea and its possible imminent collapse.

Radhakishan Damani

Radhakishan Damani is another well-known person among India's wealthiest people, with a net worth of over $17.7 billion. He was recognized as the fourth richest Indian in 2020, with a net worth of $16.5 billion.

Radhakishan Shivkishan Damani was born in a Maheshwari Marwari family and grew up in a one-room house in Mumbai. At the University of Mumbai, he pursued a career in commerce but left after only a year. Damani gave up his ball-bearing company and switched to being a stock market trader and investor after the passing of his father. His father worked in Dalal Street, which is why Damani had some knowledge and interest in the stock market. During the 1990s, he sold stocks short and earned money.

Following HDFC Bank's 1995 IPO, Damani was allegedly the company's largest individual shareholder. Due to the earnings obtained through short selling at that time, he hugely boosted his income in 1992 after the Harshad Mehta Scam was made public. In 1999, he oversaw a Nerul-based branch of Apna Bazaar, a cooperative department store, but he wasn't "convinced" by its business model. To launch his chain of hypermarkets, DMart, he exited the stock market in 2000. The first DMart store opened in Powai in 2002. In 2010, there were 25 locations in the network. Since then, the business has swiftly expanded, and in 2017, the company went public.

He currently owns over 234 DMart locations throughout India. Damani keeps a modest profile and takes part in very few interviews. Additionally, Damani has financial stakes in businesses, including India Cements and the tobacco firm VST. He is the proprietor of the 156-room Radisson Blu Resort, a popular beachfront resort in Alibag, India. He also shared his stock trading techniques with Indian millionaire Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.

Cyrus Poonawalla

In 2022, Cyrus Poonawalla was featured in the list of the top 10 richest people in India, with a net worth of around $21.6 billion. He currently holds the title of chairman and managing director of the Cyrus Poonawalla Group. The group includes several divisions of other businesses or companies, such as Serum Institute of India, Indian biotech, and Poonawalla Fincorp. In 1966, he established the Serum Institute of India, which is now the industry leader in the production of vaccine doses, producing more than 1.5 billion doses yearly of a range of vaccines that prevent measles, polio, flu, etc.

In addition, Serum, whose CEO is his son Adar, has committed an investment of about $800 million to build a new factory to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines.

Shiv Nadar

The co-founder of HCL and one of the richest billionaires in India, Shiv Nadar, is an industrialist and philanthropist. He has a net worth of over $25.5 billion. With a $102 billion revenue, HCL, which started in 1976 by manufacturing microprocessors and calculators, is today one of the major software service providers in the country. About one hundred sixty-nine thousand individuals work for HCL Technologies in 50 different nations. In 2020, after Shiv Nadar's resignation, his daughter became HCL's new CEO.

Shiv Nadar now serves as chairman emeritus. He is a well-known philanthropist in the nation and has donated more than $662 million to the Shiv Nadar Foundation in support of initiatives about education.

In 1967, Cooper Engineering Limited, located in Pune, India, was the name of the organization where Nadar first started his professional career. Soon after, he abandoned it to launch his own business in collaboration with several friends and coworkers. These partners were Subhash Arora, Yogesh Vaidya, S. Raman, Mahendra Pratap, and DS Puri. Former HCL chairman Ajai Chowdhry and CEO and chairman of Headstrong Arjun Malhotra also helped him.

Microcomp, a company specializing in selling teledigital calculators in the Indian market, was the first business Nadar and his colleagues established. Later, an investment of Rs. 187,000 allowed the group to establish HCL in 1976. Far East Computers, a Singapore-based retailer of IT hardware, was established by HCL in 1980 as a worldwide market entry.

Dilip Shanghvi

Dilip Shanghvi has a net worth of over $16.2 billion, which makes him one of the richest people in the country. In 1983, his father gave him $200 to start Sun Pharma, a company that produces mental medications. The business today ranks among the top suppliers of pharmaceuticals in the country, with annual revenues of over $4.5 billion. The most notable acquisition by Sun Pharma, for which it paid around $4 billion, was with Ranbaxy Laboratories in 2014-15. Sun Pharma has grown through numerous pharmaceutical acquisitions. Shanghvi recently made investments in multiple sectors, including oil, gas, and renewable energy.

Between 1999 and 2012, Sun Pharma acquired more than a dozen businesses and brands under Shanghvi's direction, and it grew quickly. Following a three-year takeover struggle, the company acquired a majority interest in Taro Pharmaceutical Industries in 2010, which nearly instantly increased its U.S. revenues to over $1 billion. Shanghvi managed the $4 billion acquisition of Ranbaxy Laboratories by the business from Japanese pharmaceutical tycoon Daiichi Sankyo Co., completed in 2015. With the completion of the transaction, Sun Pharma became the biggest pharmaceutical firm in India and the fifth-largest generic medication maker in the world.

Apart from managing the core operations at Sun Pharma, Shanghvi is an avid private and stock market investor. His interests have recently been seen to diversify beyond the pharmaceutical sector, particularly into renewable energy. Moreover, 2018 saw him join the Reserve Bank of India's central board.

Azim Premji

Azim Premji is a successful Indian businessman who led Wipro Limited through four decades of expansion and diversification, making it one of the global leaders in the software sector. Premji was among the world's wealthiest individuals in the initial decades of the twenty-first century.

Western Indian Vegetable Products Ltd., which created the well-known hydrogenated shortening Vanaspati, was established by Premji's father the year before the birth of Premji. Premji maintained his reputation for charity, modesty, and lack of excess while having a substantial personal fortune.

He founded the charity Azim Premji Foundation in 2001 to raise the standard of basic education throughout rural India. By the end of the twenty-first century's first decade, the foundation had added computer-assisted instruction to over 16,000 schools, with kid-friendly content becoming increasingly readily available in regional languages. Premji's standing as a highly ethical businessman whose methods are often emulated by other Indian companies has not changed.

Sunil Bharti Mittal

Sunil Bharti Mittal is the chairman and founder of one of India's major companies, named Bharti Enterprises. He is well-known for his contributions to the Indian telecoms industry and has a net worth of more than $3 billion. The businesses owned by Mittal are involved in several industries, including agricultural, retail, and telecommunications.

With operations in 17 countries, Bharti Airtel is a top three telecommunications provider nationwide and one of the top mobile operators worldwide. Airtel is the second-biggest mobile operator in Africa and the largest integrated communications solutions company in India, with a total subscriber base of approximately 500 million.

In 2020, Bharti Global purchased OneWeb, a cutting-edge space communications business constructing a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite network to deliver high-speed, low-latency broadband connection to the defense industry as well as connect deep rural areas, maritime, and aviation routes. The President and CEO of OneWeb, Sunil, is a nation's well-known figure who conducts international trade and investment initiatives for the Indian sector on a broad level. He has held the role of President of the Confederation of Indian Industry, in addition to sitting on the Prime Minister of India's Council on Trade and Industry. He participates in the CEO Forums between India and the U.S., the U.K., Japan, & Sweden, and he co-chairs the working groups on ICT and other emerging technologies. He holds a co-chair position on the India-Africa Business Council as well.

In Sunil's opinion, an ethical business must support the neighborhood in which it conducts business. This conviction led to the establishment of the Bharti Foundation, which runs over 173 Satya Bharti Schools & provides support to over 800 government schools through its Quality Support Program.

Anand Mahindra

Anand Mahindra, Chairman of the Mahindra Group, is renowned for his leadership in the automotive & technology industries and his charitable work. One of India's largest conglomerates, Mahindra Group, operates in several industries, including those of the automotive, aerospace, agribusiness, two-wheelers, construction equipment, defense, energy, finance, healthcare, hospitality, I.T., leisure and hospitality, real estate, retail, as well as telecommunications.

Mr. Mahindra earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1981 after graduating with honors from Harvard College in 1977. In 2010, he made a kind endowment to the Harvard Humanities Center, now called the Mahindra Humanities Centre at Harvard. He received the Harvard Business School Alumni Achievement Award in 2008, and in 2014, he became the first Indian to get the Harvard Medal from the Harvard Alumni Association.

In addition to the World Bank Group's Advisory Board, he has held positions on the U.N. Global Compact Board, the Council on Foreign Relations Global Board of Advisors, and other important organizations. India's third-highest civilian honor, the Padma Bhushan Award, has also been given to Mr. Mahindra. He received the titles of "Grand Officer of the Order of the Star of Italy" and "Knight in the National Order of the Legion of Honor" from the Presidents of Italy and France, respectively. Mr. Mahindra, a sharp business analyst and philanthropist with more than 9 million Twitter followers, also started the Nanhi Kali initiative, which has given more than 500,000 underprivileged girls access to top-notch education for the past 20 years.