It takes a lot of work to launch a company. Particularly if you don’t come from a wealthy family. While opportunities and time have created new paths for entrepreneurs to advance, things were very different for the majority of the last century. India was experiencing financial difficulties, whether as a result of British control or the effects of several wars. But some would-be business owners battled to make their concepts a reality, so that did not stop them. Naturally, some of them already came from wealthy families, but those that made it here did so by reinventing already successful family enterprises; the rest of the entrants are made largely by self-made individuals.
In the following article, we are featuring the 15 famous business personalities in India.
For a very long period, Dhirubhai Ambani was regarded as one of India’s most prominent corporate figures. He was raised by a local schoolteacher and is remembered by friends and family as being very ambitious and risk-taking. Ambani relocated to Yemen when he was 16 years old, where he marketed oil-related goods. Mukesh and Anil, his sons, were born in Yemen around this time. Ambani established Reliance Commercial Corporation in 1966, and in 1973 it changed its name to Reliance Industries. Reliance Industries had risen to become one of the largest businesses in India by the time of his passing in 2002.
Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata was one of the most significant Indian businesspeople of the 20th century, born into a wealthy Parsi home to renowned businessman Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata and a French mother, Suzanne Briere. He spent the majority of his formative years in France and England, finally giving up his French nationality in 1929 to become an Indian citizen. Being the country’s first licenced pilot, J R D Tata is frequently referred to be the founder of Indian air travel. He established Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in 1968, Voltas in 1954, Tata Motors in 1945, Tata Salt in 1983, and Titan Industries in 1987. In 1992, he received the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian distinction.
Kunal Bahl, an Indian investor and entrepreneur who was born and raised in Delhi, co-founded the Indian online retailer Snapdeal with a colleague from school, Rohit Bansal. The Wharton School awarded a management degree to Bahl, while IIT Delhi awarded a BTech to Bansal. In 2010, the pair launched Snapdeal as a platform for daily deals, but in 2011, they extended it to become a full-fledged e-commerce business. Snapdeal quickly rose to prominence as one of India’s top online marketplaces. The success of the platform makes him one of the most famous business personalities in India.
Radhakishan Damani, a successful Indian billionaire best known for founding DMart, was born into a lower-middle-class Marwari family in Mumbai. When his father passed away, Damani’s ball-bearing business was forced to close. Damani started working at Dalal Street after his death. During this time, Damani amassed a sizeable chunk of money before leaving the stock exchange in 2000. In 2002, he built the first DMart in Powai; by 2010, the chain had 25 locations. There are already more than 230 DMart locations, and Radhakishan Damani ranked fourth in terms of wealth in India in 2020.
Mukesh Jagtiani, also referred to as “Micky” Jagtiani, is a businessman from India with Sindhi ancestry who resides in the UAE. In Kuwait, Jagtiani was born. Jagtiani established the Landmark Group in Dubai, which subsequently branched out into a number of specialised markets like fashion, electronics, furniture, and hotels. Over 45000 people are employed by The Landmark Group throughout the Persian Gulf, Middle East, and India. As of May 2021, Jagtiani, who entered Forbes’ list of billionaires in 2008, had a net worth of $3 billion. He is definitely one of the most famous business personalities in India.
Dilip Shanghvi, who was raised primarily in Calcutta and has a bachelor’s in commerce from the University of Calcutta, was born in the Gujarati village of Amreli. Shanghvi started his career in Kolkata, where his father had a wholesale generic pharmaceuticals company. He began to consider creating his own pharmaceuticals during this time, and in 1982, with just Rs 10,000, he started the Sun Pharmaceutical Industries. Sun purchased Ranbaxy in 2014, making it India’s biggest pharmaceutical firm. In October 2021, Shanghvi, who had a net worth of approximately $14 billion, was the 14th richest individual in India.
G. D. Birla, who was born into the already wealthy Merchant family of the Birlas, rose to prominence as one of the family’s most significant members and eventually founded a number of significant businesses and institutions that still stand as a testament to his legacy. Birla had the idea to start a commercial bank using Indian capital after the Quit India Movement in 1942, and as a result, United Commercial Bank, subsequently known as UCO Bank, was created. In addition, Birla established BITS in Pilani, his hometown, which is today one of India’s most prestigious educational institutions.
Mohanlal Mittal, the father of Lakshmi Mittal, was a Marwadi who ran the steel company Nippon Denro Ispat. As part of his father’s Ispat Industries, Lakshmi Mittal constructed his first steel facility in Indonesia in 1978 under the name Ispat International due to the restriction on steel production in India. In 1989, Mittal purchased a state-owned steel mill in Trinidad and Tobago. Over the subsequent 20 years, he made numerous other acquisitions, the largest of which being his 2006 purchase of Arcelor, which he renamed ArcelorMittal.
Ritesh Agarwal was raised in Odisha and was born into a low-income household. Despite dropping out of college, Ritesh was chosen for the 2013 Thiel Fellowship. As the recipient of the Thiel Fellowship Program’s $100,000 grant, he founded a website for finding cheap lodging, which he introduced as OYO Rooms in 2013. Agarwal tripled his interest in OYO by purchasing shares worth $2 billion in 2019, which he did in September 2018 after raising $1 billion in cash. Ritesh Agarwal is currently the second-youngest self-made billionaire.
Azim Premji is an Indian businessman and philanthropist who was born into a prominent Gujarati Muslim business family. He took over WIPRO after graduating from Stanford University with an engineering degree. The business was originally in the hydrogenated oil business, but Azim Premji expanded it into other industries such as soaps & toiletries, lighting, hydraulic cylinders, etc. Premji rebranded the company and moved it into the IT industry by producing microcomputers in order to capitalise on India’s IT growth. Over the past 20 years, he has devoted all of his time to advancing India’s educational system while also working on his business.
Shiv Nadar is an Indian millionaire businessman who was raised in the town of Moolaipozhi in Madras Presidency (current-day Tamil Nadu). Beginning his career with Cooper Engineering Ltd. of the Walchand Group, he quickly quit to launch his own business. He finally established Microcomp in 1976 to sell tele-digital calculators in India and HCL. The business expanded internationally in 1980 when Far East Computers was established in Singapore. He gave his daughter Roshni Nadar control of the business in 2020, making her the country’s first female chairman of a publicly traded IT company.
Falguni Nayar, a Mumbai native, completed her undergraduate studies at Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics before obtaining her master’s degree from IIM Ahmedabad. In 1985, she started her career as a consultant by working as a consultant for A F Ferguson & Co., a management consulting firm. She began working at Kotak Mahindra Group in 1993 and worked there for 19 years, holding the position of managing director from 2005 until her departure from the organisation in 2012. Falguni Nayar created Nykaa in the same year, when she was 50 years old. As of 2021, Nykaa was valued at $2.3 billion, boosting Nayar’s net worth to just under $1.1 billion.
Sachin Bansal, a Chandigarh native who attended IIT Delhi after graduating, first worked for Amazon before launching his own e-commerce site. He founded Flipkart as an online book retailer as well, similar to Amazon. At first, Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal ran their start-up out of a flat in Bangalore. In 2018, Bansal made his exit by selling his shares to Walmart. After leaving Flipkart, Bansal made a number of investments, including an investment of $100 million in Ola Cabs. Together with Ankit Agrawal, he established the financial services business Navi in 2018.
Deepinder Goyal, an Indian businessman who was born in Chandigarh, founded the well-known online meal delivery service Zomato. Goyal earned a BTech degree from IIT Delhi and had a brief career with Bain & Company. Goyal founded Foodiebay, later rebranded to Zomato, since he had always been interested in starting a food and services company. Zomato has received a lot of backing from investors and customers over the years, and in 2020 it will be recognised as a unicorn company. Goyal’s net worth was $650 million as of 2021.
N R Narayanamurthy grew up in a middle-class Kannadiga family in Sidlaghatta, the capital city of the Kingdom of Mysore. He began working there as a research associate before rising to the position of Chief Systems Programmer. He worked on India’s first time-sharing computer system during this time. His startup business, Softronics, was a failure. Nevertheless, he invested Rs 10,000 to create Infosys in 1981, and he held the position of CEO for 21 years.
Conclusion
Those are the 15 most famous business personalities in India. While they are now idols to others, their journey hasn’t been easy at all. But no matter the challenge, they didn’t forget why they set sails. We hope that this inspires you and hope this article was worth your time.
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Business Talk is a digital business magazine that caters to CEOs, Entrepreneurs, VC, and Corporates. While working with entrepreneurs and business executives, we focus not only on their achievements. Our mission is to shed light on business entities, including their innovations, technological benchmarks, USPs, and milestones/accolades.
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