Mukesh Ambani

ukesh Ambani (born April 19, 1957 in Yemen) is an Indian businessman and a billionaire. He is the chairman, managing director and the largest shareholder of Reliance Industries, India’s largest private sector enterprise and a Fortune 500 company. His personal stake in Reliance Industries is 48%. His wealth is valued at US$20.1 billion (according to Forbes World’s Richest People List 2007), making him the second richest Indian behind steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal.

Mukesh and younger brother Anil are sons of the late founder of Reliance Industries, Dhirubhai Ambani.

Education

Mukesh Ambani holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from the University Department of Chemical
Technology (UDCT), (now University of Mumbai, Institute of Chemical Technology (UICT)). He began the MBA program at Stanford Business School, but dropped out after his first year in order to assist in his father’s ongoing efforts to build the Patalganga petrochemical Plant.

Career

Mukesh Ambani joined Reliance in 1981 and initiated Reliance’s backward integration from textiles into polyester fibres and further into petrochemicals. In this process, he directed the creation of 60 new, world-class manufacturing facilities involving diverse technologies that have raised Reliance’s manufacturing capacities from less than a million tonnes to twelve million tonnes per year.

He directed and led the creation of the world’s largest grassroots petroleum refinery at Jamnagar, Gujarat, India, with a present capacity of 660,000 barrels per day (33 million tonnes per year) integrated with petrochemicals, power generation, port and related infrastructure, at an investment of Rs 100000 crore (nearly $26 billion USD).

Mukesh Ambani set up one of the largest telecommunications companies in India in the form of Reliance Communications (formerly Reliance Infocomm) Limited. However, Reliance Infocom now is under ADAG (Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group) post the brothers’ split.

Mukesh Ambani is also steering Reliance’s initiatives in a world scale, offshore, deep water oil and gas exploration and production program, a pan-India petroleum retail network involving 5,800 outlets and a research-led life sciences initiative covering medical, plant and industrial biotechnology.

Mukesh Ambani bought out an IPL franchise. He is the higest bidder and he got Mumbai team rights paying $111.9 million.

Wealth

As of 2007, Ambani is the world’s 14th richest individual. Acoording to Forbes his net worth is estimated at $20.1 billion US dollars.

Family

Ambani is the son of one of the most prominent businessman in India, the late Dhirubhai Ambani, a Gujarati entrepreneur. His brother Anil Ambani heads other companies in the Reliance Group. The Ambani brothers had a well-publicized spat after their father’s death, which led to the Reliance Group being split between the two.

Mukesh Ambani is married to Nita Ambani, who looks after the social and charitable arm of Reliance Industries. They have 3 children: Akash, Isha and Anant.

Ambani is currently building a US$1 billion residential building, Antilia in Mumbai for his family. It is expected to be ready in September 2008.

He gifted his wife Nita a jet plane worth Rs.242-crore(US$62 million) recently during her birthday.

Achievements

  • Conferred the United States-India Business Council (USIBC) leadership award for “Global Vision” 2007 in Washington.
  • Ranked 42nd among the World’s Most Respected Business Leaders and second among the four Indian CEOs featured in a survey conducted by Pricewaterhouse Coopers and published in Financial Times, London, November 2004.
  • Conferred the World Communication Award for the Most Influential Person in Telecommunications in 2004 by Total Telecom, October, 2004.
  • Chosen Telecom Man of the Year 2004 by Voice and Data magazine, September 2004.
  • Ranked 13th in Asia’s Power 25 list of The Most Powerful People in Business published by Fortune magazine, August 2004.
  • Conferred the Asia Society Leadership Award by the Asia Society, Washington D.C., USA, May 2004.
  • Ranked No.1 for the second consecutive year, in The Power List 2004 published by India Today, March 2004.
  • Recorded as the first Trillionaire in India, June 2007

References

1. Mukesh Ambani earns Rs 864,000 a day!. Rediff.com. Retrieved on 2006-11-05.

2. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2006/countries/I.html

3. Forbes mukesh ambani. forbes. Retrieved on 2007-03-09. “Year 2007”.

4. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/10/07billionaires_Mukesh-Ambani_NY3A.html

5. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/10/07billionaires_Mukesh-Ambani_NY3A.html