India's most admired
business leaders
In 1991, he took over as group chairman from
J R D Tata, pushing out the old guard and
ushering in younger managers.
Under his guidance, Tata Consultancy Services
went public and Tata Motors was listed on the
New York Stock Exchange. In 1998, Tata
Motors introduced his brainchild, the Tata
Indica.
On January 31, 2007, Tata Sons successfully
acquired Corus Group, an Anglo-Dutch steel
and aluminium producer. The merger created
the fifth largest steel producing entity in the
world. On March 26, 2008, Tata Motors
bought Jaguar & Land Rover from Ford Motor
Company.
Ratan Tata's dream was to manufacture a car
costing Rs 100,000. He realised his dream by
Ratan Naval Tata unveiling the Nano in New Delhi Auto Expo on
Chairman, Tata Group January 10, 2008. It was finally launched on
March 23, 2009.
He took the Godrej Group to great height
even during controlled economy era.
An industrialist and a philanthropist, Godrej
modernised and systematised management
structures and implemented process
improvements.
After India's economy was opened up,
Godrej restructured the company's policies to
meet the challenges of globalisation.
In the early 2000s, the Group completed a 10-
year restructuring process through which each
business became a stand-alone company with
a CEO/COO from outside the Godrej family.
Godrej, a major supporter of the World
Wildlife Fund in India, has developed a green
business campus in the Vikhroli township of
Mumbai, which includes a 150-acre mangrove
forest and a school for the children of
company employees.
Adi Godrej
Chairman & Managing Director, Godrej Group
Gurgaon became a world-famous outsourcing
destination in span of a decade because of K P
Singh's world-class earthquake-proof office
buildings, apartments, shopping malls and
leisure facilities.
In 2008 he became the world's richest real
estate tycoon.
In 1960, he joined American Universal Electric
Company and soon after its merger with DLF
Universal Limited in 1979, he took over as the
managing sirector of this new company.
DLF has an estimated land bank of 10,255
acres.
Kushal Pal Singh
Chairman & CEO, DLF Ltd
In May 2009, Chanda Kochhar took over the
reins of the bank from K V Kamath.
Kochhar has also consistently figured in
Fortune's list of 'Most Powerful Women in
Business' since 2005.
In 2009, she debuted at number 20 in the
Forbes 'World's 100 Most Powerful Women
list'.
Chanda Kochhar
MD & CEO, ICICI Bank
At the age of 21 he took over the family business --
Western India Vegetable Product Company -- when his
father, M H Premji, suddenly passed away in 1966.
The Western India Vegetable Product later became Wipro
Products Ltd, Wipro Technologies and Wipro Corporation.
Under Premji's leadership Wipro embarked on an
ambitious phase of expansion and diversification. The
Company began manufacturing light bulbs with General
Electric and other consumer products including soaps,
baby care products, shampoos, powder
In the 1980s Wipro entered the IT field, taking advantage
of the expulsion of IBM from the Indian market in 1975.
Premji is known for his modesty and frugality in spite of
his wealth. He drives a Toyota Corolla, flies economy class
prefers to stay in company guest houses.
Premji has been recognised by Business Week as one of
the greatest entrepreneurs globally.
In 2009, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from
Azim Hashim Premji Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, for his
Chairman, Wipro Limited outstanding philanthropic work.
In 1994 Deveshwar rejoined ITC and was
appointed whole time director and vice
chairman of the company. He took over as
chairman of ITC in January 1996.
He is the person who dreamt of making ITC
Limited into India's largest fast moving
consumer goods company.
Yogesh Chander Deveshwar
Chairman & CEO, ITC Limited
He was the CEO of the company for 21 years,
from 1981 to 2002. After stepping down as
CEO in 2002, he has broadened his scope of
activities to social services as well as
promoting India globally.
Murthy started a new venture capital fund
called Catamaran Venture Fund with the
money he got by selling 800,000 Infosys shares
worth Rs 174 crore (Rs 1.74 billion).
His wife, Sudha Murthy, also helped him set up
his VC fund by giving him Rs 430 crore (Rs 4.3
billion) which she got by selling quarter of her
stake in Infosys.
Murthy siad, "I want Infosys to be a place
where people of different genders,
nationalities, races and religious beliefs work
together in an environment of intense
Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy
competition but utmost harmony, courtesy
Founder & chief mentor, Infosys
and dignity to add more and more value to our
customers day after day."
She founded Biocon India with a capital of Rs
10,000 in 1978. The initial operation was to
extract an enzyme from papaya.
Her application for loans was turned down by
banks on two counts - biotechnology was then
a new word and the company lacked assets.
Over the years, the company grew under her
leadership and is today the biggest
biopharmaceutical firm in India.
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw
Chairman & Managing Director, Biocon Ltd
A first generation entrepreneur, Mittal started his first
business -- to make crankshafts for local bicycle
manufacturers -- in April 1976 at the age of 18, with a
capital investment of Rs 20,000 borrowed from his
father.
In 1980 he sold his bicycle parts and yarn factories and
moved to Mumbai. In 1984, he started assembling
push-button phones in India.
In 1992, he successfully bid for one of the four mobile
phone network licences auctioned in India. His plans
were finally approved by the government in 1994 and
he launched services in Delhi in 1995.
Bharti Cellular Limited offered services under the
brand name AirTel. In November 2006, he struck a
joint venture deal with Wal-Mart, the US retail giant,
to start a number of retail stores across India.
In July 2006, he attracted many key executives from
Reliance ADAG, NIS Sparta and created Bharti Comtel.
Sunil Bharti Mittal Mittal, failed in his bid to buy South African telecom
Chairman & Managing Director, giant MTN, but was successful in buying Zain Telecom
Bharti Enterprises of Kuwait.
Beginning his career with TCS as a junior
engineer, he rose through the ranks and
eventually was charged with setting up TCS'
operations in the United States in 1979 in New
York City.
Ramadorai spearheaded TCS' quality
initiatives, taking sixteen of its Development
Centers to SEI's CMM Level 5, the highest and
most prestigious performance assessment
issued by the Software Engineering Institute.
Subramanian Ramadorai
Vice-chairman,
Tata Consultancy Services
As of July 2010, Mukesh Ambani was the
richest man in Asia and the fourth richest man
in the world with a personal wealth of $29.0
billion.
He joined Reliance Industries in 1981. He
directed and led the creation of the world's
largest grassroots petroleum refinery at
Jamnagar with a current capacity of 660,000
barrels per day (33 million tonnes per year)
integrated with petrochemicals, power
generation, port and related infrastructure.
In August 2010 Reliance announced a $392
million stake in an American natural gas
interest located in central and northeast
Pennsylvania.
Reliance has also purchased significant stakes
Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani
in the shale gas assets of Atlas Energy Inc and
Chairman, Reliance Industries
Pioneer Natural Resources.
At HSBC she has held positions as chief
executive officer and deputy chief
executive officer of HSBC Bank in India and
managing director aof HSBC Securities and
Capital Markets India Private Limited.
She became the group's country head in
2009.
Kidwai has repeatedly ranked in the
Fortune global list of Top Women in
Business, 12th in the Wall Street Journal
2006 Global Listing of Women to Watch ad
listed by Time magazine as one of their 15
Global Influentials 2002.
Naina Lal Kidwai
Group general manager & Country Head,
HSBC Group
Puri has been the managing director of the
bank since September 1994.
He has about 36 years of banking experience in
India and abroad.
Prior to joining HDFC Bank, Puri was the CEO of
Citibank, Malaysia from 1992 to 1994.
Puri in an interview once said, he always finds
time for golf and family. He spends just an
hour each day on planning. The rest of the
time in bugging people to do their jobs.
Aditya Puri
MD, HDFC Bank
In 1944, when he was 20, Munjal along with elder
brothers Dayanand, Satyanand and younger
brother Om Prakash came from Kamalia (now in
Pakistan) and settled in Amritsar.
The brothers initially started a business by
supplying components to manufacturers of
bicycles in and around Amritsar.
After the partition in 1947 the Munjal family
completely shifted their base from Pakistan to
Ludhiana.
Slowly they expanded their distribution network
and by early 1950s they were supplying
components of bicycles throughout India.
In 1954, Hero Cycles Ltd moved up the value chain
by making a shift from supplying to manufacturing.
In 1984, the Hero Group started a joint venture
with Japan's Honda Group, to manufacture
motorbikes Brijmohan Lall Munjal
Chairman, Hero Group
He was appointed chairman of SBI in June
2006.
The five-year term of Bhatt will expire in
March 2011. His will be the longest serving
chairman of SBI in recent past.
Starting his career as a probationary officer
in SBI in 1972, Bhatt held several key
assignments in the bank.
He served as managing director of State
Bank of Travancore from January 2005 to
April 2006.
Om Prakash Bhatt
Chairman, SBI
He founded Sterlite Industries in 1976 and then
in 1986 established Vedanta Resources bringing
together a variety of businesses owned by the
Agarwal family.
Then followed a spate of acquisitions both in
India and overseas -- and with it came the
controversies, since many of them, such as
Bharat Aluminium and Hindustan Zinc, involved
public sector undertakings over which there
was much resistance, mainly political.
Recently he acquired up to 60 per cent of
British energy giant Cairn's Indian arm -- which
is into oil and gas exploration -- for around a
whopping $9.5 billion.
Anil Agarwal
The Indian government, however, rejected his
Founder & chairman, Vedanta
bauxite-mining project in Orissa, citing
Resources Corporation
environmental issues on August 24, 2010.
A chartered accountant, Birla earned an MBA
from London Business School, where he is
also an Honorary Fellow.
He served as the Chairman of Securities and
Exchange Board of India's Committee on
Corporate Governance, and as chairman of
Sebi's Committee on Insider Trading.
He has authored the nation's First Report on
Corporate Governance.
On the academic front, Birla is the Chancellor
of BITS, Pilani, Hyderabad, Goa and Dubai.
He is a director of the G D Birla Medical
Research and Education foundation.
Kumar Mangalam Birla
Chairman, Aditya Birla Group
Ambani joined Reliance in 1983 as co-chief
executive officer and is credited with having
pioneered many financial innovations in the
Indian capital markets.
One of his major achievements in the
entertainment industry is the takeover of
Adlabs, the movie production to distribution to
multiplex company that owns India's only
dome theatre and the joint venture worth
$825 million with Steven Spielberg.
Ambani was in talks with Everton officials over
a deal to takeover the club. Before this he was
also on the brink of buying Newcastle United.
Anil Dhirubhai Ambani
Chairman,
Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group
Mallya took over as chairman of United Breweries Group in 1984.
In May 2007, United Breweries Group announced the all-cash
acquisition of scotch whisky maker Whyte & Mackay for pound 595
million (approximately Rs 6000 crore).
In 2005, Mallya established Kingfisher Airlines, which later bought a 26
per cent stake in Air Deccan, a low cost Indian airline. Mallya later
rebranded it as Kingfisher Red.
In 2007, Mallya and the Mol family from The Netherlands bought the
Spyker F1 team for euro 88 million. The team changed its name to
Force India F1 from the 2008 Season.
Mallya's United Breweries sponsors the East Bengal and Mohun Bagan
football clubs in Kolkata.
He also was part of the consortium that acquired Queens Park Rangers
FC, as part of the Bernie Ecclestone, Flavio Briatore and Lakshmi Mittal.
Vijay Mallya
Mallya also owns the Royal Challengers Bangalore team in the Indian
Chairman,
Premier League.
United Breweries
Mallya entered politics in 2000 and replaced Subramanian Swamy as
Group & Kingfisher
the president of the Janata Party. He is a Member of Parliament in
Airlines
Rajya Sabha.
In 2004, he placed the winning bid of pound 175,000 for the sword of
Tipu Sultan at an auction in London, and brought it back to India.
In March 2009, Mallya successfully bid for the belongings of Mahatma
Gandhi at $1.8 million, in a New York auction.
In the summer of 1991, he was appointed
deputy managing director of Mahindra &
Mahindra Ltd.
In April 1997, he was appointed managing
director and in January 2003 given the
additional responsibility of vice chairman.
Mahindra was a co-promoter of Kotak
Mahindra Finance, which in 2003 was
converted into a bank.
Mahindra is the co-founder of the Harvard
Business School Association of India.
In 2009, Tech Mahindra, successfully acquires
Satyam Computer. Anand Mahindra
Vice chairman & MD,
Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd
Along with Ajai Chowdhry (chairman, HCL
Infosystems), Arjun Malhotra (CEO and
chairman, Headstrong), Subhash Arora, Yogesh
Vaidya and D S Puri, he started Microcomp to
sell teledigital calculators in the Indian market
under the brand name Televista.
HCL was founded later in 1976 with an
investment of Rs 187,000 from the 6 founders
and Uttar Pradesh government was added as
26 per cent equity partner.
Nadar took HCL Technologies public in 1999.
His partnernship with Singapore Telecom to
address the now-booming Indian Telecom
Shiv Nadar market was unsuccessful as well as his
Chairman & chief strategy officer, attempts in the granite and aquaculture
HCL Technologies business.
