Dhirubhai Ambani

Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani, popularly known as Dhirubhai

Ambani (28 December 1932 – 6 July 2002) was an Indian business
tycoon who founded Reliance Industries in Bombay and appeared
in The Sunday Times top 50 businessmen in Asia. Ambani took
Reliance public in 1977 and was worth $25.6 billion upon his death
on 6 July 2002.In 2016, he was honored posthumously with
the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honor for his
contributions to trade and industry.

Early career
Dhirubhai Ambani was one of the sons of Hirachand Gordhanbhai
Ambani, a village school teacher belonging to the Modh community
and Jamnaben Ambani and was born in Chorwad, Junagadh
district, Gujarat. Dhirubhai married Kokila, and they had four
children; Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani, Nina Bhadrashyam
Kothari and Dipti Dattaraj Salgaocar. He migrated to the then
British colony of Aden at age 17 where his brother was working. He
initially served as a clerk at A. Besse & Co., which then was the
largest transcontinental trading firm east of Suez. He worked as a
employer in Yemen, then came to India with ₹50000 and started a
textile trading company in 1958.

Founding of Reliance Industries

Ambani returned to India and started "Majin" in partnership with

Champaklal Damani, his second cousin, who lived with him in
Yemen. Majin was to import polyester yarn and export spices to
Yemen. The first office of the Reliance Commercial Corporation
was set up at the Narsinatha Street in Masjid Bunder. It was a
350 sq ft (33 m2) room with a telephone, one table and three chairs.
Initially, they had two assistants to help them with their business.
During this period, Ambani and his family stayed in a two-bedroom
apartment at the Jai Hind Estate in Bhuleshwar, Mumbai. In 1965,
Champaklal Damani and Dhirubhai Ambani ended their partnership
and Ambani started on his own. It is believed that both had different
temperaments and a different take on how to conduct
business. While Damani was a cautious trader and did not believe in
building yarn inventories, Ambani was a known risk-taker and
believed in building inventories to increase profit. In 1966 he
formed Reliance Commercial Corporation which later
became Reliance Industries on 08 May 1973.

Ambani's control over stock exchange

Extensive marketing of the brand in the interiors of India made it a

household name. Franchise retail outlets were started and they sold
the "only Vimal" brand of textiles. In the year 1975, a technical team
from the World Bank visited the 'Reliance Textiles' Manufacturing
unit.

In 1988, Reliance Industries came up against a rights issue

regarding partly convertible debentures. It was rumoured that the
company was making all efforts to ensure that their stock prices did
not slide an inch. Sensing an opportunity, The Bear Cartel, a group
of stock brokers from Calcutta, started to short sell the shares of
Reliance. To counter this, a group of stock brokers until recently
referred to as "Friends of Reliance" started to buy the short sold
shares of Reliance Industries on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The Bear Cartel was acting on the belief that the Bulls would be
short of cash to complete the transactions and would be ready for
settlement under the "Badla" trading system operative in
the Bombay Stock Exchange. The bulls kept buying and a price
of ₹ 152 per share was maintained until the day of settlement. On
the day of settlement, the Bear Cartel was taken aback when the
Bulls demanded a physical delivery of shares. To complete the
transaction, much money was provided to the stock brokers who had
bought shares of Reliance, by Dhirubhai Ambani. In the case of
non-settlement, the Bulls demanded an Unbadla, or penalty sum,
of ₹ 35 per share. With this, the demand increased and the shares of
Reliance shot above ₹ 180 in minutes. The settlement caused an
enormous uproar in the market.

To find a solution to this situation, the Bombay Stock Exchange was

closed for three business days. Authorities from the Bombay Stock
Exchange (BSE) intervened in the matter and brought down the
"Unbadla" rate to ₹ 2 with a stipulation that the Bear Cartel had to
deliver the shares within the next few days. The Bear Cartel bought
shares of Reliance from the market at higher price levels and it was
also learnt that Dhirubhai Ambani himself supplied those shares to
the Bear Cartel and earned a healthy profit out of The Bear Cartel's
adventure.

After this incident, many questions were raised by his detractors and
the press. Not many people were able to understand how a yarn
trader until a few years ago was able to get in such a huge amount of
cash flow during a crisis period. The answer to this was provided by
the then finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee in the Parliament. He
informed the house that a Non-Resident Indian had invested up
to ₹ 220 million in Reliance during 1982–83. These investments
were routed through many companies like Crocodile, Lota and
Fiasco. These companies were primarily registered in Isle of Man.
All the promoters or owners of these companies had a common
surname Shah. An investigation by the Reserve Bank of India in the
incident did not find any unethical or illegal acts or transactions
committed by Reliance or its promoters.
Uday Kotak
Uday Kotak (born 15 March 1959) is an Indian billionaire banker,
and the executive vice chairman and managing director of Kotak
Mahindra Bank.

In early 1980s, while India was still a closed economy and

economic growth was muted, Kotak decided to start out on his own,
refusing a lucrative job option from a multinational. Over the next
few years, he diversified his business into various areas of financial
services, establishing a prominent presence in bills discounting,
stockbroking, investment banking, car finance, life insurance and
mutual funds. On 22 March 2003, Kotak Mahindra Finance Ltd.
became the first company in India’s corporate history to receive a
banking license from Reserve Bank of India.

Forbes estimated his wealth to be $10.6 billion in 2018. In 2006 he

ended a 14 year partnership with Goldman Sachs by acquiring its
25% stake in two subsidiaries for $72 million.

Early life and education

Kotak was raised in an upper middle

class Gujarati Lohana joint-family household with 60 persons
sharing a common kitchen under one roof. The family was
originally into cotton trading. He called this "Capitalism at work and
Socialism at home".

His two pastimes had been cricket and playing the sitar. In a 2014
interview with NDTV he admitted that he was no longer pursuing
his playing of the sitar.

His talent in mathematics influenced his choice of career. He earned

a bachelor's degree from Sydenham College and completed a
postgraduate degree in management studies in 1982 from Jamnalal
Bajaj Institute of Management Studies.

Career

After completing his MBA, Kotak started Kotak Capital

Management Finance Ltd (which later became Kotak Mahindra
Finance Ltd). From a seed capital of less than US$80,000 borrowed
from family and friends, he converted a bill-discounting start-up
into a financial services conglomerate with assets of US$19 billion
(as of March 2014), and the second largest schedule commercial
bank by market capitalization in India (private and PSU) with over
1250 branches.

During 2014, Kotak almost doubled his wealth as shares of

his Kotak Mahindra Bank hit an all-time high after he sealed a $2.4
billion deal in November 2014 for rival ING Vysya Bank, partly
owned by Dutch financial services group ING.
In 2015, Kotak enters the general insurance business and is
partnering telecom magnate Sunil Mittal's Bharti Airtel to start a
small payments bank.

Kotak has reduced his stake in the Kotak Mahindra Bank to 30% as
of now, as he is required to bring it down to 20% as per RBI
directions.

In August 2019 he was reported to be one of the most highly paid

CEOs of any Indian bank with a monthly salary of ₹27
lakh (US$39,000).

Honours and awards

In June 2014, he was named Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of

the Year 2014.

He was the sole Indian Financier to feature in Money Masters: The

Most Powerful People in The Financial World, by Forbes
magazine, US (May 2016.

India Today magazine ranked him #8th in India's 50 most powerful

people of 2017 list.

In 2018, he was named one of the "Best CEOs In The World" by

the CEOWORLD magazine
Azim Premji
Azim Premji, in full Azim Hasham Premji, (born July 24,
1945, Bombay [now Mumbai], India), Indian
business entrepreneur who served as chairman of Wipro Limited,
guiding the company through four decades of diversification and
growth to emerge as a world leader in the software industry. By the
early 21st century, Premji had become one of the world’s wealthiest
people.

In the year that Premji was born, his father founded Western Indian
Vegetable Products Ltd., which produced vanaspati, a widely used
hydrogenated shortening. Three years later colonial India was
partitioned into mainly Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan, but the
Premjis, a Muslim family, chose to remain in India. In 1966, just
before Premji was to complete his degree in engineering at Stanford
University, his father died unexpectedly. Postponing his graduation,
he returned to India to take the reins of the family business and
immediately began to diversify, delving into consumer products
such as soap, shoes, and light bulbs, as well as hydraulic cylinders.

Premji renamed the company Wipro in 1977, and in 1979, when the
Indian government asked IBM to leave the country, he began to
steer the company toward the computer business. Wipro established
a number of successful international partnerships in the 1980s to
help it build computer hardware for sale in India. It was software
development, however, that made the firm so lucrative. Premji built
a reputation for hiring the best people and providing them with
unparalleled training, and he took advantage of India’s large pool of
well-educated software developers who were willing to work for
much less money than their American counterparts. Wipro
concentrated on developing custom software for export, primarily to
the United States.

Thanks to substantial increases in technology stocks, Wipro’s value

skyrocketed in the late 1990s, and Premji became one of the
richest entrepreneurs in the world—a position he retained well into
the 21st century. The success of both the company and its chairman
was more than merely the result of outside forces’ inflating the value
of the company, however. Premji had boldly broken with tradition
by transforming Wipro into an information technology powerhouse
with a solid footing in foreign markets at a time when most fortunes
in India were based on ownership of land and factories used to
produce domestically consumed goods. In 1999 Premji officially
completed his degree from Stanford through a distance-learning
arrangement.

Despite his vast personal wealth, Premji continued to be recognized

for his modesty, lack of extravagance, and charity. In 2001 he
established the non-profit Azim Premji Foundation, through which
he aimed to improve the quality of elementary education in rural
regions throughout India. By the end of the first decade of the 21st
century, the foundation had extended computer-aided education to
more than 16,000 schools, with child-friendly content increasingly
available in local languages. Premji’s reputation remained that of a
highly ethical entrepreneur whose operation served as a model for
other Indian firms.

Dhirubhai Ambani
Dhirubhai Ambani, in full Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani, (born
December 28, 1932, Chorwad, Gujarat, British India—died July 6,
2002, Mumbai, India), Indian industrialist who was the founder of
Reliance Industries, a giant petrochemicals, communications,
power, and textilesconglomerate that was the biggest exporter
in India and the first privately owned Indian company in
the Fortune 500.

Ambani was the third of five children born to a village

schoolteacher and his wife, and he grew up in a family of modest
means. At the age of 17, he migrated to the British colony
of Aden to join his brother. He started his career as a clerk at A.
Besse & Co., which in the 1950s was the largest transcontinental
trading firm east of Suez. There he learned trading, accounting, and
other business skills. In 1958 Ambani returned to India and settled
in Bombay .

Ambani began a business trading in spices in the late 1950s, calling

his nascent venture Reliance Commercial Corporation. He soon
expanded into other commodities, following a strategy of offering
higher-quality products and accepting smaller profits than his
competitors. His business grew quickly. After deciding that the
corporation had gone as far as it could with commodities, Ambani
turned his attention to synthetic textiles. He made his first foray into
backward integration with the opening of the first
Reliance textile mill in 1966. Continuing a policy of backward
integration and diversification, he gradually shaped Reliance into a
petrochemicals behemoth and later added plastics and power
generation to the company’s businesses.
In 1977 Ambani took Reliance public after nationalized banks
refused to finance him. His agility in navigating a stodgy economy
and crippling government regulations and bureaucracy led to
allegations of political manipulation, corruption, and engineered
raids on competitors, but investor confidence in Reliance remained
unshaken owing in part to the handsome dividends the company
offered, as well as the founder’s charisma and vision. Ambani was
credited with introducing the stock market to the average investor in
India, and thousands attended the Reliance annual general meetings,
which were sometimes held in a sports stadium, with many more
watching on television.

Ambani handed over the day-to-day running of the company to his

sons, Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani, in the mid-1980s but
continued to oversee the company until shortly before his death in
2002.
Lakshmi Mittal

Lakshmi Mittal, in full Lakshmi Narayan Mittal, (born June 15,

1950, Sadulpur, Rajasthan, India), Indian businessman who was
CEO of Arcelor Mittal, the world’s largest steel making company.
In the 1960s Mittal’s family moved to Calcutta (Kolkata), where his
father operated a steel mill. Mittal worked at the mill while studying
science at St. Xavier’s College. After graduating (1970) he served
as a trainee at the mill, and in 1976 he opened his own steel mill
in Indonesia. He spent more than a decade learning how to run it
efficiently. In 1989 Mittal purchased the beleaguered state-owned
steel works in Trinidad and Tobago, which had been losing huge
sums of money. A year later that facility had doubled its output and
had become profitable. He used a similar formula for success in a
series of acquisitions all around the world, purchasing failing
(mostly state-run) outfits and sending in special management teams
to reorganize the businesses.

Mittal’s business philosophy emphasized consolidation in

an industry that had become weak and fragmented. Although
demand for steel remained high, smaller steel companies had been
unable to strike competitive deals with their major clients, notably
automakers and appliance manufacturers. Mittal’s company,
however, controlled about 40 percent of the American market for
the flat-rolled steel used to make cars, which allowed the giant
steelmaker to negotiate more favourable prices. In 2004 Mittal
merged his companies, Ispat International and LNM Holdings, and
acquired Ohio-based International Steel Group. The newly created
company, Mittal Steel Co. NV, emerged from the deal as the world’s
largest steelmaker. Two years later Mittal oversaw another merger
when Mittal Steel joined with Arcelor to form ArcelorMittal.

Mittal, who was sometimes described as being media shy, often

made news for his notable expenditures, including a record £70
million ($128 million) for a 12-bedroom home in Londonand an
estimated $60 million for his daughter’s 2004 wedding in Paris. His
donation of £125,000 (about $180,000) to the Labour Party in 2001
created controversy when it was learned that Prime Minister Tony
Blair had helped Mittal purchase a steel company in Romania even
though Mittal’s firms backed a U.S. tariff opposed by British steel
producers.
Shiv Nadar

Shiv Nadar (born 14 July 1945) is an Indian billionaire industrialist

and philanthropist. He is the founder and chairman of HCL and the
Shiv Nadar Foundation. Nadar founded HCL in the mid-1970s and
transformed the IT hardware company into an IT enterprise over the
next three decades by constantly reinventing his company's focus.
In 2008, Nadar was awarded Padma Bhushan for his efforts in the
IT industry. Nadar, nicknamed by friends as Magus , since the
mid-1990s has focused his efforts on developing the educational
system of India through the Shiv Nadar
Foundation. Ramanichandran, a prolific Tamil romance novelist is
his cousin.

Early life and education

Nadar was born in 1945 in Moolaipozhi Village, about 10

kilometres from Tiruchendur in Thoothukudi district , Tamil Nadu,
India. His parents were Sivasubramaniya Nadar and Vamasundari
Devi. His mother, Vamasundari Devi, is the sister of S. P. Adithanar,
founder of Dina Thanthi newspaper.

Nadar studied at Town Higher Secondary School, kumbakonam.

Also, studied in Elango Corporation Higher Secondary School,
Madurai. He was admitted into the first form (Sixth Standard) in
June 1955 and continued his education in Town High School until
June 1957. Later, he joined St. Joseph Boys Higher Secondary
School, Trichy, and completed high school education here. Nadar
received a pre-university degree in the American College, Madurai
and a degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from PSG
College of Technology, Coimbatore.

Career

Nadar began his career at Walchand group's College of

Engineering, Pune (COEP) in 1967. He soon gave it up to begin his
own venture, in partnerships with several friends and colleagues.
These partners were Ajai Chowdhry (Ex-Chairman, HCL
Infosystems), Arjun Malhotra (CEO and Chairman, Headstrong),
Subhash Arora, Yogesh Vaidya, S. Raman, Mahendra Pratap and DS
Puri.

The initial enterprise which Nadar and his partners began was
Microcomp, a company which focused on selling teledigital
calculators in the Indian market. HCL was founded in 1976, with an
investment of Rs. 187,000.

In 1980, HCL ventured into the international market with the

opening of Far East Computers in Singapore to sell IT hardware.
The venture reported Rs 1 million revenue in the first year and
continued to address the Singapore operations. Nadar remained the
largest shareholder without retaining any management control.

Focus on education and health care

Shri Shiv Nadar and Ms Roshni Nadar presenting a cheque of Rs. 4

crore to the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, towards the
Prime Minister's National Relief Fund in New Delhi on January 17,
2005

In 1996, Nadar founded SSN College of Engineering in Chennai,

Tamil Nadu in the name of his father, Sivasubramaniya Nadar.
Nadar took an active role in the college activities, including the
gifting of Rs. 1 million worth of HCL shares to the college. In 2006,
Nadar announced that the college will promote research apart from
ensuring that students benefit from foreign university tie-ups. Nadar
joined the executive board of Indian School of Business in 2005. In
March 2008, Nadar's SSN Trust announced the setting up of two
Vidyagyan schools in UP for rural students, where free scholarship
will be provided for 200 students from 50 districts of Uttar Pradesh.
He visited Town Higher Secondary School in February 2011 and
donated computers and other equipment worth Rs. 80 lakhs. He
served as chairman of the board of governors, IIT Kharagpur, a
technical institute until 2014.
Dilip Shanghvi
Dilip Shanghvi, in full Dilip Shantilal Shanghvi, (born October 1,
1955, Amreli, Gujarat state, India), Indian business executive who
was the founder (1983) of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

The son of a wholesale drug distributor, Shanghvi launched Sun

Pharma soon after graduating (1982) from the University of
Calcutta with a bachelor’s degree in commerce. He assumed the
post of managing director. Initially, the company marketed only a
small number of psychiatric drugs, but by the early 1990s it had
opened its own research and manufacturing facilities and added
product lines in the fields of cardiology and gastroenterology.
Shanghvi took the company public in 1994. Three years later Sun
Pharma made its first international acquisition when it bought
Detroit-based Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories; it also
took equity stakes in two prominent Indian drug manufacturers,
Tamilnadu Dadha Pharmaceuticals and MJ Pharmaceuticals.

Under Shanghvi’s leadership, Sun Pharma continued to expand at a

rapid rate, acquiring more than a dozen companies and brands
between 1999 and 2012. The firm’s 2010 purchase of a controlling
stake in Taro Pharmaceutical Industries following a three-year take
over battle almost immediately doubled its U.S. revenues to more
than $1 billion. In 2015 Shanghvi oversaw the completion of the
company’s $3.2 billion acquisition of generic-drug rival Ranbaxy
Laboratories from Japan-based pharmaceutical giant Daiichi
Sankyo Co. The deal made Sun Pharma the fifth largest
generic-drug producer in the world as well as the largest
pharmaceutical company in India.

Aside from his work at Sun Pharma, Shanghvi was active as a

personal investor, with interests that increasingly extended beyond
pharmaceuticals, notably in the field of renewable energy. In 2018
he became a member of the Reserve Bank of India’s central board.

Gautam Adani
Gautam Shantilal Adani (born 24 June 1962) is an
Indian billionaire industrialist who is the chairman and founder of
the Adani Group an Ahmedabad-based multinational conglomerate
involved in port development and operations in India. Adani is the
president of the Adani Foundation, which is primarily led by his
wife, Priti Adani.

He founded the Adani Group in 1988 and diversified his business

into resources, logistics, energy, agriculture, defence and aerospace,
amongst others.

According to Forbes, his net worth is estimated to be around $8.7

billion as of August 2018. He has a 66% stake in Adani Ports & SEZ
Limited, 75% stake in Adani Enterprises, 73% stake in Adani
Power, 75% stake in Adani Transmission. In 2017, he was ranked as
the 4th most powerful person in India by India Today.

Early life

Gautam Adani was born on 24 June 1962 in a Jain Bania family to

Shantilal and Shanti Adani in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. He has 7
siblings and his parents had migrated from the town of Tharad in the
northern part of Gujarat. His father was a textile merchant. He was
educated at Sheth Chimanlal Nagindas Vidyalaya school in
Ahmedabad. He enrolled in a bachelor's degree in commerce
at Gujarat University, but dropped out after the second year. Adani
was keen on business, but not his father's textile business.

Career

In 1978, as a teenager, Adani moved to Mumbai to work as a

diamond sorter for Mahendra Brothers. He worked there for 2-3
years before establishing his own diamond brokerage firm at Zaveri
Bazaar, Mumbai.

In 1981, his elder brother Mansukhbhai Adani bought a plastics unit

in Ahmedabad and invited him to manage the operations. This
venture turned out to be Adani's gateway to global trading
through polyvinyl chloride(PVC) imports.

In 1985, he started importing primary polymers for small-scale

industries. In 1988, Adani established Adani Exports Limited, now
known as Adani Enterprises Limited – the holding company of the
Adani Group. Originally, the company dealt in agricultural and
power commodities.

In 1991, the economic liberalization policies turned out to be

favorable for his company and he started expanding the businesses
into trading of metals, textiles, and agro products.
In 1993, the Government of Gujarat announced managerial
outsourcing of the Mundra Port and in 1995, Adani got the contract.

In 1995, he set up the first jetty. Originally operated by Mundra Port

& Special Economic Zone, the operations were transferred to Adani
Ports & SEZ Limited (APSEZ). Today, the company is the largest
private multi-port operator. Mundra Port is the largest private sector
port in India, with the capacity of handling close to 210 million tons
of cargo per annum.

In 1996, the power business arm of the Adani Group – Adani Power
Limited was founded by Adani. Adani Power holds thermal power
plants with a capacity of 4620 MW, the largest private thermal
power producer of the country.

In 2006, Adani entered the Power generation business. From 2009

to 2012, he acquired Carmichael Coal in Queensland and Abbot
Point Port in Australia.

Philanthropy

Adani is the president of the Adani Foundation, the corporate social

responsibility arm of the Adani Group. It was founded in 1996.
Other than Gujarat, the Foundation operates in the states of
Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh,
Chhattisgarh, and Odisha. The Group works on the following
sectors:

Education

Community Health

Rural Infrastructure Management

Sustainable Livelihood Management

Controversy

During the time of 2014 Loksabha elections of India, Adani was

accused of various controversies. He was being accused of
supporting Narendra Modi for his campaign in Bharatiya Janata
Party. Even though claiming on national media that he has no
special favors with Modi, Modi was seen traveling on Adani group's
chartered planes to rallies across India. To counter this allegation,
Adani spoke out in an interview with CNBC and clarified that the
BJP paid market price to Adani Group for using its aviation
services.

It was alleged that the NDA government was favouring Adani by

allegedly waiving Rs. 200 crore fine on Adani Port and SEZ. Adani,
later, in an interview clarified the fine has not been dropped and the
government is not favouring Adani either. He further clarified that
the mine is owned by Rajasthan Government, and Adani Group is
just the mine contractor

Ratan Tata
Ratan Tata, in full Ratan Naval Tata, (born December 28,
1937, Bombay [now Mumbai], India), Indian businessman who
became chairman (1991–2012 and 2016–17) of the Tata Group, a
Mumbai-based conglomerate.

A member of a prominent family of Indian industrialists and

philanthropists , he was educated at Cornell University, Ithaca, New
York, where he earned a B.S. (1962) in architecture before returning
to work in India. He gained experience in a number of Tata Group
businesses and was named director in charge (1971) of one of them,
the National Radio and Electronics Co. He became chairman of Tata
Industries a decade later and in 1991 succeeded his uncle, J.R.D.
Tata, as chairman of the Tata Group.

Upon assuming leadership of the conglomerate, Tata aggressively

sought to expand it, and increasingly he focused on globalizing its
businesses. In 2000 the group acquired London-based Tetley Tea for
$431.3 million, and in 2004 it purchased the truck-manufacturing
operations of South Korea’s Daewoo Motors for $102 million. In
2007 Tata Steel completed the biggest corporate takeover by an
Indian company when it acquired the giant Anglo-Dutch steel
manufacturer Corus Group for $11.3 billion.

In 2008 Tata oversaw Tata Motors’ purchase of the elite British car
brands Jaguar and Land Rover from the Ford Motor Company. The
$2.3 billion deal marked the largest-ever acquisition by an Indian
automotive firm. The following year the company launched the
Tata Nano, a tiny rear-engined, pod-shaped vehicle with a starting
price of approximately 100,000 Indian rupees, or about $2,000.
Although only slightly more than 10 feet (3 metres) long and about
5 feet (1.5 metres) wide, the highly touted “People’s Car” could seat
up to five adults and, in Tata’s words, would provide a “safe,
affordable, all-weather form of transport” to millions of middle- and
lower-income consumers both in India and abroad. In December
2012 Tata retired as chairman of the Tata Group. He briefly served
as interim chairman beginning in October 2016 following the ouster
of his successor, Cyrus Mistry. Tata returned to retirement in
January 2017 when Natarajan Chandrasekaran was appointed
chairman of the Tata Group.

Among many other honours accorded him during his career, Tata
received the Padma Bhushan, one of India’s most distinguished
civilian awards, in 2000.
Anand Mahindra

Anand Gopal Mahindra (born 1 May 1955) is the Chairman

of Mahindra Group, a Mumbai-based business conglomerate. The
group operates in aerospace, agribusiness, aftermarket, automotive,
components, construction equipment, defence, energy, farm
equipment, finance and insurance, industrial equipment,
information technology, leisure and hospitality, logistics, real estate
and retail. Anand Mahindra is the grand-son of Jagdish Chandra
Mahindra, co-founder of Mahindra & Mahindra.

As of September 2017, his net worth is estimated to be $1.55 billion.

He is an alumnus of Harvard University and Harvard Business
School. In 1996, he established Nanhi Kali, a non-government
organisation that supports education for underprivileged girls in
India.
He is included by Fortune Magazine among the 'World's 50 Greatest
Leaders'. and featured in the magazine's 2011 listing of Asia's 25
most powerful business people. Anand was noted by Forbes
(India) as their 'Entrepreneur of the Year' for 2013.

Early life

Anand Mahindra was born on 1 May 1955 in Bombay, India to the

late industrialist Harish Mahindra and Indira Mahindra. Anand has
2 sisters; Anuja Sharma and Radhika Nath. He completed his early
schooling from Lawrence School, Lovedale and then went on to
study film making and architecture from Harvard University where
he graduated magna cum laude (High Honors) in the year 1977. In
1981, he completed his MBA from the Harvard Business School

Career

In 1981, Anand joined Mahindra Ugine Steel Company Ltd

(MUSCO) as an Executive Assistant to the Finance Director.

In 1989 he was appointed as President and Deputy Managing

Director of the MUSCO. he initiated the Mahindra Group's
diversification into the new business areas of real estate
development and hospitality management.

On 4 April 1991, he took the role of Deputy Managing Director

of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., a producer of off-road vehicles and
agricultural tractors in India. In April 1997, Anand was appointed as
the Managing Director and then in 2001 as the Vice Chairman of
Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.

In August 2012, he took on the role of Chairman of the board and

Managing Director of the Mahindra Group from his uncle, Keshub
Mahindra.

In November 2016, Anand was re-designated as Executive

Chairman of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd and continued to be the
Chairman of Mahindra Group.

Anand was a co-promoter of Kotak Mahindra Bank In 2013, he

ceased to be a promoter and stayed on as a non-executive director.

Today, the Mahindra Group is a US$19 billion organisation, and

one of India's top 10 industrial houses.

Anand Mahindra has been tagged as the face of Indian capitalism

by The Economist. Forbes India Magazine has recognised him as
their 'Entrepreneur of the Year' for the year 2013.

Beyond Mahindra

In April 2014, Anand became a member of the board of U.S.–India

Business Council (USIBC). He helps promote the policy advocacy
priorities of USIBC and advises members and senior USIBC staff.

In 2011, Anand was invited to join the International Advisory

Council of Singapore's Economic Development Board.
He is the Chairman of the India Advisory Council at the Lincoln
Center, New York. In January 2015, he was appointed on a
four-year team as a Trustee of the Natural History Museum of
London.

An avid advocate of using 'design for human happiness, Anand is

the chairman, Governing Council National Institute of Design and
President, India Design Council.

In 2014, Anand Mahindra with his brother-in-law and sports

commentator, Charu Sharma, launched Pro Kabaddi League, a
professional-level kabaddi league in India.

Anand, along with Mukesh Ambani and Mahesh Samat, was the
co-founder EPIC, an Indian television channel in 2014 that
showcases Hindi content. In 2016, he became the sole owner after
both the co-founders sold their stakes to Mahindra.

Anand was featured in Fortune Magazine's list of The World's 50

Greatest Leaders in 2014 and in the list of the top 25 most powerful
business people in Asia in 2011. He was the World Economic Forum
co-chairman in 2009. He was one of the contributors for the book
'Reimagining India' published by Mckinsey & Company.
Personal life

Anand married Anuradha, who was a journalist and later launched

the magazine, Verve. She is currently the editor of magazines Verve
and Man's World. They have two daughters Divya and Aalika.

Anand has a keen interest in film making, a subject he pursued as an

undergraduate at Harvard. He is a keen photographer with a strong
interest in films. He also enjoys listening to the blues and has set up
Mahindra Blues Festival held annually in Mumbaisince 2011.

Anand promotes arts & culture and has set up an awards platform
named Mahindra Excellence in Theater Awards and the Mahindra
Sanatkada Lucknow Festival, a crafts exhibition and performing
arts event held annually in Lucknow.

Charity

Anand is an advocate of the study of humanities as he believes it can

help address various problems in the world that arise due to
interdependency. He donated $10 million to support the Harvard
Humanities Center. In recognition of this donation, the center was
renamed to Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard.

He is the founder of project Nanhi Kali which aims to provide

primary education to underprivileged girls in India. As of
September 2017, the project has supported 130,000 underprivileged
girls.
Anand is also the chairman-for-life and one of the board of directors
of Naandi Foundation, an Indian charitable trust that works towards
the socio-economic development of India.
Adi Godrej

Adi Burjorji Godrej (born 3 April 1942) is an

Indian billionaire industrialist and businessman, head of the Godrej
family, and chairman of the Godrej Group. As of 2018, he has a net
worth of US$2.9 billion.

Godrej completed his schooling at The Cathedral & John Connon

School. He earned an undergraduate degree from HL college and
an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he was
a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity and a member of Tau
Beta Pi.

Career

After his return to India, he joined the family business. He

modernised the management structure and implemented process
improvements. Adi Godrej took the Godrej Group to great heights
during the License Raj. He heads the group alongside his brother,
managing director of Godrej Industries and chairman of Godrej
Agrovet, Nadir Godrej, and his cousin, Godrej & Boyce managing
director and chairman, Jamshyd Godrej.

Under his stewardship, Godrej Consumer Products has grown into a

strong emerging market FMCG player based on a 3X3 approach to
international expansion — building a presence in 3 emerging
markets (Asia, Africa, Latin America) across 3 categories (home
care, personal wash, hair care).

Beyond Godrej

He has been president of several Indian Trade and Industrial Bodies

and associations.

He is the chairman of the Indian School of Business since April

2011. and was elected as the president of Confederation of Indian
Industry (CII) for the year 2012-13. He has been a member of the
Dean's Advisory Council of the MIT Sloan School of
Management[M3], Chairman of the Board of Governors of
the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies.

Social responsibility

In a recent interview for the Creating Emerging Markets project at

the Harvard Business School, Adi Godrej describes his beliefs about
corporate social responsibility and explains how the Godrej
Group has been involved with philanthropic activities. Godrej
Group is a major supporter of the World Wildlife Fund in India, it
has developed a green business campus in the Vikhroli township of
Mumbai, which includes a 150-acre (0.61 km2) mangrove forest
and a school for the children of company employees.

Twenty-five percent of the shares of the Godrej holding company

are held in trusts that include the Pirojsha Godrej Foundation, the
Soonabai Pirojsha Godrej Foundation and the Godrej Memorial
Trust. Through these trusts the Group supports healthcare,
education and environmental sustainability initiatives such as The
Mangroves, Teach for India, WWF, and the Godrej Memorial
Hospital among others.

Awards

Over the years, he has been a recipient of several awards and

recognitions:
Rajiv Gandhi Award, 2002.

The American India Foundation (AIF) Leadership in Philanthropy

Award, 2010.

The Entrepreneur of the Year, Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship

Awards, 2010.

Best Businessman of the Year, GQ Men of the Year Awards, 2010.

AIMA-JRD Tata Corporate Leadership Award, 2010.

Bombay Management Association — Management Man of the Year

Award, 2010-2011.

Qimpro Platinum Standard Award for Business, 2011.

Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, 2012.

Padma Bhushan, 2012.

The Asian Awards Entrepreneur of the Year, 2013.

All India Management Association-Business Leader of the Year,

2014.

Awarded honorary doctorate from TERI School of Advanced

Studies in 2018

Personal life
He was married to socialite and philanthropist, Parmeshwar
Godrej until her death in October 2016, and has three children. They
live in Malabar Hill, South Mumbai.

Aditya Puri

Mr. Aditya Puri holds a Bachelor's degree in Commerce from

Punjab University and is an Associate Member of the Institute of
Chartered Accountants of India.

Prior to joining the Bank, Mr. Puri was the Chief Executive Officer
of Citibank, Malaysia from 1992 to 1994.

Mr. Puri has been the Managing Director of the Bank since
September 1994. Mr. Puri has over four decades of experience in the
banking sector in India and abroad.

Mr. Puri has provided outstanding leadership as the Managing

Director and has contributed significantly to enable the Bank scale
phenomenal heights under his stewardship. The numerous awards
won by Mr. Puri and the Bank are a testimony to the tremendous
credibility that Mr. Puri has built for himself and the Bank over the
years.

The Bank has made good and consistent progress on key parameters
like balance sheet size, total deposits, net revenues, earnings per
share and net profit during Mr. Puri's tenure.

The rankings achieved by the Bank amongst all Indian banks with
regard to market capitalization, profit after tax and balance sheet
size remain amongst the top 10.

During his tenure Mr. Puri has led the Bank through two major
mergers in the Indian banking industry i.e. merger of Times Bank
Limited and Centurion Bank of Punjab Limited with HDFC Bank
Limited. The subsequent integrations have been smooth and
seamless under his inspired leadership. Mr. Puri continues to be the
Managing Director of the Bank.
Mr. Puri is a member of the following Committees of the Board of
the Bank.

Cincinnatus Fabian D'Abreo

Cincinnatus Fabian D’Abreo was an administrator and politician

in Goa, Portuguese India.

Biography
He was born on 24 September 1862. His father, Manuel D’Abreo
had migrated to Sindh in 1846. Cincinnatus was married to Maggie
Gomes with whom he had five children, Joe, Maggie, Alfred,
Gwennie and Bill.

He was educated at St Patrick's High School, Karachi. However, he

had to discontinue his studies at the age of 16 and earn a living, due
to the unfortunate death of his father. He was first employed by
the Civil and Military Gazette Press as a clerk. Two years later he
joined the British business, Forbes, Forbes and Campbell, engaged
in the import and export trade. In 1889, at the age of 27, he joined
the Sind Commissioner’s office as a clerk. In 1895 he was promoted
to the position of assistant collector of Sukkur and finally was
elected president of the municipality.

In 1897 he returned to Karachi, where he occupied various posts

such as assistant collector of customs, and shipping master. He was
appointed acting collector of customs on two occasions. He was a
councillor of Karachi Municipality for many years and made a
remarkable contribution to civic life in Karachi.

D’Abreo was instrumental in starting the Karachi Goan

Association. He also played a part in the launch of the Indian Flour
Mills, the Union Press, and the Indian Life Assurance Company, of
which he was secretary for many years. He was also one of the
directors of the Karachi Building and Development Company.
In 1917 he retired from service and devoted himself to various
social activities. He was held in high esteem by the people of
Karachi, who named him among the 12 leading citizens of Sindh.
He died on 25 January 1929.

D'Abreo acquired 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) of land outside the

cantonment. In 1908, this was developed into Karachi's first planned
township named Cincinnatus Town, which today forms part
of Garden East.

\
Jason Fernandes

Jason Fernandes is an Indian blockchain entrepreneur and

technology columnist hailing from Goa. As a teenager, Fernandes
founded the internet portal ZeoCities.com, the non-profit
LDKids.org and wrote for CHIP Magazine. Later, while studying at
the University of Texas, Austin, Fernandes co-invented
the Internet-based DVR, InstantTV, and was part of the founding
team at PerceptiveI (a company that developed ECRM software).
After moving to Goa in 2012, Fernandes began working as a
monthly technology columnist for GlobeAsia Magazine, Indonesia.
He has also founded the IoT company SmartKlock Inc and
two Blockchaincompanies, FUNL Corp, and Malta-based AET
Ventures (AEToken), of which he is presently the COO. Fernandes
has advised state governments and political parties on IT and
education policies. He also writes for various technology media
publications and has spoken at TEDx events.

Early life

Jason Fernandes was born in Bombay (now known as Mumbai) to

artists Thomas and Jeanette Fernandes. Fernandes was a teenager
when he was diagnosed with dyslexia. It was then that he was given
access to the family computer, which started his journey into
technology.

Career

Teenage years

In 1998, Fernandes bought his first website domain,

www.jasonsoftware.com, which later became ZeoCities.com: a web
portal offering free email, websites, search engine, news and chat.
He also became a writer and technology troubleshooter for one of
India’s most widely read computer publications, CHIP Magazine
(christened Dr. Chip). In 1999, Fernandes created Learning
Disabled Kids, a non-profit website, as a way of helping others
better understand dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, attention deficit
disorder and other learning disabilities. For this, in 1999, he was
awarded the Childnet International Award (UK).

College years

Fernandes moved to the United States to study at the University of

Texas, Austin. While studying there, he was among the founding
members of RecordTV.com (now known as InstantTV), where he
holds a patent for a Network DVR; he also part of the founding team
of PerceptiveI, a company that developed patented ECRM software
for clients.

Return to India and subsequent career

After completing his education, Fernandes moved back to India,

residing in Goa. He then started working as a technology columnist
for Indonesia’s GlobeAsia Magazine. Over the years, his writings
have appeared in The Jakarta Globe, CHIP, DNA India, The
Goan and Man's World Magazine, among others.

Fernandes helped develop SmartKlock, a "smart" clock that gave its

users only important notifications. For this product, he ran a
Kickstarter campaign. Eager to hear more opinions on it, he wrote
to Steve Wozniak in September 2014. Wozniak replied with an
encouraging note and an autographed photograph of
the Apple co-founders sitting with the Apple I prototype. This
venture slowly grew into FUNL Corp, which offers an app designed
to block out unnecessary notifications, with a reward-based system
(working on blockchain). Along with Vadim Fedotov and Gene
Hoffman, Fernandes also co-founded Malta-based AET Ventures
(AEToken).

Fernandes has advised the country of Barbados, the Government of

Goa, and multiple Goan political parties on IT and Education
policy. He was a speaker at TEDxPanaji in 2017, keynote speaker at
the International Blockchain Congress, and has been a featured
speaker at events hosted by the Computer Society of India, Goa
Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), Goa University, BITS
Pilani University, Goa Engineering College and 91Springboard.

Blockchain and Cryptocurrency

In November 2017, Fernandes founded blockchain startup FUNL

Corp, a platform that “filters notifications using a social blocking
approach making real-time intelligent decisions on whether to block
or let a notification through to your phone based on data executed
from other users”. Later, Fernandes co-founded a blockchain based
payment solution for the affiliate marketing industry (built on
the Ethereum blockchain as a side chain), called Affiliate Economy
Token or AEToken. In October 2018, AEToken won the
competition for the best ICO pitch at the Malta Blockchain Summit
Fernandes often speaks on the subjects of cryptocurrency and
blockchain at conferences and seminars. He has spoken at the
following events:

Keynote speaker at a Blockchain seminar at Padre Conceição

College of Engineering (PCCE) in 2018. Panel speaker at the
International Blockchain Congress and shared the stage with Crypto
Youtuber Ian Balina.

In December 2018, Fernandes became a biweekly guest on Malta’s

BloxliveTV, for his opinion on cryptocurrency. He has since
appeared on their "Crypto Now" and the "New On The Block"
shows. In March 2019, they profiled Fernandes on their show "Be
Influenced", which highlights people in the blockchain industry.

Awards and accolades

Fernandes has been awarded the Seaside Startup Summit 2018

Award, Startup@Singapore Award, the First National
Technopreneurship competition Award (Singapore), "Best Business
Plan" award from Sybase at the Global Entrepreneurs Challenge
at Stanford University, California, the Childnet International Award
(UK) in 1999 and in 2000 he was featured on Rediff.com's
"Achiever Track". In 2015, he won the Asian Scientist Writing
Prize, for his piece entitled Moore’s Law and Evolution: How non
biological evolution made Charles Darwin irrelevant, which
focused on how evolution has been far outpaced by non-biological
evolution and the age of the cyborg. He also holds a patent for
a Network DVR.

Vasantrao S. Dempo

Vasantrao S. Dempo was born on March 4, 1916 into an

aristocratic Saraswat family and educated in Marathi, Portuguese
and English, Vasantrao entered the family business when he was
quite young. After his elementary education, he went to the
Lyceum where he took his baccalaureate at the age of 18. In 1932,
he married Girijabai Naik Gaunekar of Bandora. A year later,
Vasantrao paid his first visit to British India.
With the Liberation of Goa, Vasantrao embarked on a
diversification programme and expanded his industrial empire. For
Vasantrao, business was no stranger. The Dempos had been in
business even as early as 1600, when they owned a fleet of
‘pangayas’ country sailing craft, and ran a passenger-cum-cargo
service from Goa to African and Arabian ports.

Vasantrao started his personal enterprise in 1941. He was barely

out of school then. Despite his youth, he was immediately
successful. Vasantrao looked towards twin ideals: expansion and
diversification. In 1941, Vasantrao borrowed money and started
business as a shipping agent. He was assisted by his younger
brother Voicuntrao. In 1941 he set up his own VS Dempo & Co
Pvt Ltd and began to import foreign goods like perfumes,
chocolate and other confectionery acquired from England and
Portugal. He had agencies to sell trucks and motor cars.

He took the initiative to establish the Dempo Charities Trust which

apart from helping hundreds of students and other individuals and
institutions, managed two colleges at Panaji namely Dhempe
College of Art and Science and Srinivas Sinai Dempo College of
Commerce and Economics. He also established two daily
newspapers The Navhind Times in English and Navprabha in
Marathi. Vasantrao Dempo passed away on November 9, 2000.