India is home for many unbelievably wealthy individuals and families who are today known all across the globe. India is the country that has the third biggest group of rich people after the US and China. Forbes has taken into account around 121 people from India out of the 2068 individuals for its annual ranking. Let me take you through such the most brilliant top 10 richest people in India for the year 2019.
Table of Contents
1.Mukesh Ambani:
A Managing director and the chairman of Reliance Industries with current Net Worth – $50 Billion, which makes him the richest person in India. As of March 2019, he is the 13th richest person in the world and the richest man in Asia. Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is India’s most valuable company and amongst the Fortune Global 500 companies as per its market value.
Personal Life: Mukesh Ambani is an Indian business magnate, born to Mr. Dhirubhai Ambani and Kokilaben Ambani on 19th April 1957 in Aden, Yemen. He has two sisters, Dipti Dattaraj Salgaocar and Nina Bhadrashyam Kothari and one younger brother Anil Ambani. His spouse’s name is Neeta Ambani and they have two sons and one daughter. He lives at the “Antilia” Building situated at Mumbai, which is one of the world’s most luxurious private residences worth of around $1 billion.
Education: He has done his bachelor’s degree from the University of Bombay in chemical engineering and later pursued a master’s degree from Stanford University in business administration. However, in 1981 he left this degree in between to join the family business.
Career: Following Dhirubhai Ambani’s death in 2002, he and his brother were jointly leading the reliance companies, however, they split Reliance’s assets via Noncompetition agreement (2006-10) under which Mukesh got oil, Gas, and petrochemical units as RIL. He has been recognized for building the world’s largest petroleum refinery start-up with several state-of-the-art manufacturing amenities which has massively increased RIL’s production competences.
Achievements:
- In 2006, he co-chaired the India Economic Summit at the World Economic Forum (WEF)
- He has consistently been on the Forbes Magazine list for the past 10 years as India’s richest person. He is also the only Indian businessman on the world’s most popular people in Forbes’ list.
- As of 2018, Ambani was ranked as the 18th wealthiest man in the world as per Forbes
- He owns Mumbai Indians, a franchise of the Indian Premier League and he is the founder of the Indian Super League which is an Indian football league. In 2012, He was also entitled as one of the richest sports owners in the world by Forbes.
2.Azim Premji:
Azim Premji is the founder of Wipro Limited with current Net Worth of $22.6 Billion, which makes him the 2nd richest person in India.
Personal Life: Premji was born on 24th July 1945 in Bombay, India having his family origins from Kutch, Gujarat. He is an Indian business tycoon, engineer, investor, philanthropist, and the chairman of Wipro Limited. He is married to Ms. Yasmeen and has two sons, Tariq and Rishad.
Education: Premji has done a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, USA.
Career: In 1966, when his father died, he returned home from Stanford University and took charge of his father’s business “Wipro” (dealt in hydrogenated oil manufacturing) at that time, but later he diversified the business to bakery fats, hair care soaps, ethnic ingredient based toiletries, baby toiletries, hydraulic cylinders, and lighting products.
Later in the 1980s, when the Indian IT industry was booming, Premji understood the importance of the emerging IT field and entered into the high-technology sector in collaboration with an American company Sentinel and started manufacturing minicomputers. Thereafter Wipro made an intensive shift from soaps to software.
Achievements:
- In 2010, as Asiaweek, he was among the 20 most powerful men in the world.
- Listed in 100 most influential people by TIME Magazine in 2004 & 2011
- In 2005, he was awarded Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan in 2011 by Government of India
- In 2013 he signed The Giving Pledge and agreed to give away at least half of his wealth and by 2016, he had given away his 39% of his wealth to charity.
3.Shiv Nadar:
He is the founder and chairman of HCL with the current net worth of $14.6 Billion which makes him the 3rd richest person in India.
Personal Life: Shiv was born on 14th July 1945 in Moolaipozhi, Tamilnadu to Sivasubramaniya Nadar and Vamasundari Devi. He is married to Kiran Nadir and has one daughter named Roshni Nadar.
Education: Shiv has completed his higher schooling from St. Joseph Boys Higher secondary school at Trichy, and later took the pre-university degree from the American College, Madurai. He has an engineering degree in Electrical and Electronics from PSG College of Technology at Coimbatore.
Career: He began his career in 1967 from Walchand group’s College of Engineering at Pune but very soon he gave it up and started his venture “Micro comp” (selling of teledigital calculators) in partnerships with his friends. Later in 1970, he founded HCL and over the next three decades he transformed into an IT enterprise.
In 1980, HCL volunteered into the international market to sell IT hardware which gave around Rs. 1 million revenue in the initial first year and thereby they continued doing foreign operations till now.
Achievements:
- In 2008, Shiv was awarded Padma Bhushan by the Government of India.
- He is actively focused on developing the Indian educational system through his Shiv Nadar Foundation.
4.Lakshmi Mittal:
The Chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal with a current net worth of $13.6 Billion which makes him the 4th richest person in India. ArcelorMittal is the world’s biggest steelmaking company.
Personal Life: Lakshmi Niwas Mittal was born on 15 June 1950 in the UK. His father Mohanlal Mittal had a steel business. Aditya Mittal married to Usha Mittal and they have one son, Aditya Mittal and one daughter, Vanisha Mittal.
Education: Mittal has completed his graduation in B. Com from St. Xavier’s College at the University of Calcutta with first-class grades.
Career: After graduation, in 1976, he started his first steel factory “PT Ispat Indo” in Indonesia and spent a decade learning how to run a factory efficiently. Later in 1989, he purchased the besieged state-owned steelworks in Tobago & Trinidad which within a year this facility doubled its output and thereby increased the profits. In 2004, he merged his two businesses, “LNM Holdings” and “Ispat International” and acquired “International Steel Group” from Ohio and created a new company named “Mittal Steel Co.” as the world’s biggest steelmaker. Two years later Mittal steel joined “Arcelor” and formed “ArcelorMittal”.
Achievements:
- In 2003, he established the LNM Institute of Information Technology (LNMIIT) in Jaipur in collaboration with the Rajasthan Government.
- In 2009, he collaborated with Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and formed the Usha Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management in New Delhi, India
- In 2008, he donated £15 million to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London
5.Uday Kotak:
The managing director and executive vice-chairman of Kotak Mahindra Bank with current Net Worth of $11.8 Billion which makes him the 5th richest person in India.
Personal Life: He was born on 15th March 1959 in a Gujrati family and his family was originally into the cotton trading business. He was a talented mathematics student, which influenced his future.
Education: He has got his bachelor’s degree from Sydenham College and later in 1982 completed a post-graduation in management studies from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies.
Career: After his MBA, Kotak decided to start his own business instead of choosing a job offers from multinationals. He started his first company “Kotak Capital Management Finance Ltd” (that later became Kotak Mahindra Finance Ltd) and in the next few years, he diversified his business into various businesses such as financial services, life insurance, stockbroking, and many more areas. In 2003, his company became the first company that received a banking license from Reserve Bank of India.
Achievements:
Today Kotak is the second biggest scheduled commercial bank in India with over 1250 branches.
6.Kumar Mangalam Birla:
The Chairman of the Aditya Birla Group with a current net worth of $11.1 Billion which makes him the 6th richest person in India.
Personal Life: He was born on 14th June 1967 in Kolkata and raised in Mumbai. He is a fourth-generation member of their family who hails from Rajasthan.
Education: He has done his high schooling from Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics. Later he completed his bachelor’s degree from H.R. College of Commerce and Economics of the University of Mumbai, and post-graduation degree from London Business School. He is also a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).
Career: At the age of 28, he joined their family business and took over as chairman in 1995 due to his father’s death. He was responsible for the major increase in the group’s annual turnover with a drastic jump from US$3.33 Billion in 1995 to US$48.3 billion in 2019.
Achievements:
- He is the chancellor of the Birla Institute of Technology & Science
- The chairman of IIT, Delhi, and IIM, Ahmedabad.
- He has received “CEO of the Year Award” in 2016 from International Advertising Association, “Global Leadership Award” in 2014 from the US India Business Council and many more
7.Radhakishan Damani:
He is a self-made billionaire, who owns the mega retail store “DMart” with a current net worth of $11.1 Billion, which makes him the 7th richest person in India.
Personal Life: He was born in 1954 in an Indian Marwari family. His father, Shivkishanji Damani, was already into the stock-market business. He considers, Chandrakant Sampat (First-generation investor) as his mentor. He has three daughters out of them, Manjri Chandak is the manager of ‘DMart. His wife and brother Gopikishan also help in business by promoting the hypermarket.
Education: Radhakishan has pursued B.Com from the University of Mumbai but dropped out in between to become a businessman.
Career: He had started his career as a trader in ball bearing business but he had to become a stock market investor due to the financial crisis after his father’s death. He spent his few years only in observation and speculation of this field. In the early 1990s, he eventually became one of the top leading stock-market investors in India and opened DMart a big market chain and now rules Dalal Street.
8.Cyrus Poonawalla:
The Chairman of Poonawalla group with a current net worth of $9.5 Billion which makes him the 8th richest person in India. Poonawalla Group includes the Serum Institute of India which manufactures pediatric vaccines (an Indian biotech company).
Personal life: He was born in 1945 in a family that had an ancient business of horse racing. He is married to Late Villoo Poonawalla and they have one son “Adar”, who is the Executive Director at the Serum Institute.
Education: He has completed his graduation in 1966 from Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce (BMCC) and later did a Ph.D. from Pune University in 1988 with his thesis on a medical subject.
Career: At the age of 20, he realized that horse racing has no future in India and decided to start the car business, but he couldn’t take it up due to the huge capital requirement on the commercial front. At that time the Haffkine institute (government-owned) was making vaccines from the horse serum, which Poonawalla found as an opportunity and took it as a challenge of producing these vaccines. He along with his brother Zaveri sold their horses and set up this venture in 1966. Later they founded the Serum Institute of India and produced many other vaccines, making it one of the leading Biotech companies of India and currently exporting vaccines to over 140 countries across the globe.
Achievements:
- The government of India awarded him “Padma Shri” for his involvement in the medical sector in 2005.
- He has received “Lifetime Achievement Award” by the Indian Prime Minister in 2005
- He was also awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science in 2019 by the University of Oxford.
- Forbes has ranked (as per 2018 ranking) him as the 170th richest person in the world.
9.Gautam Shantilal Adani:
The Chairman and founder of the Adani group with a current net worth of $8.7 Billion which makes him the 9th richest person in India. Adani group is an MNC and they are into coal mining & trading, oil & gas exploration and distribution, ports, logistics, power generation, and its transmission and agriculture.
Personal Life: Gautam was born on 24th June 1962 in Ahmedabad in a Jain family. His parents are Shantilal and Shanti Adani and he has 7 siblings. His father had a textile business at that time. His wife, Priti is a dentist and managing trustee of Adani Group. They have two sons, Karan Adani and Karan Adani.
Education: He has done his schooling from Sheth Chimanlal Nagindas Vidyalaya school, Ahmedabad. He had dropped in between his B.com degree in the second year to start his own business.
Career: After leaving graduation, he worked as a diamond sorter for two years at Mahindra Bros in Mumbai and set up his diamond brokerage too but later returned to Ahmadabad to work with his brother in his plastic factory. This venture opened a gateway for global trading for importing PVC, metals, agro and textiles products and he founded “Adani Enterprises limited” in 1988. In 1995, Adani got the contract for managing Mundra Port in Gujrat which handles around 210 million tons of cargo per annum. In 1996, Adani founded the “Adani Power Limited”.
10.Dilip Sanghvi:
The founder of Sun Pharma with a current net worth of $7.6 Billion which makes him the 10th richest person in India.
Personal Life: Dilip Shanghvi was born on 1st October 1955 in a Gujarati family to Shantilal Shanghvi and Kumud Shanghvi. His father had a business of Wholesale generic drugs in Kolkatta. He is married to Vibha Shanghvi and they have one son, Aalok and one daughter, Vidhi.
Education: he has taken a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from the University of Calcutta.
Career: After his graduation, he got into his father’s business and one day while working, he got the thought of manufacturing his drugs rather than selling others’ products. With this thought in mind, he started Sun Pharmaceutical Industries in 1982 at Vapi and after few years in 1997, Sun acquired Caraco Pharma, (an American company in loss), to expand business in the United States. Later in 2017, he also acquired Israel’s Taro Pharma and in 2014, Sun acquired all outstanding shares of Ranbaxy, which made Sun the biggest drug company in India and the 5th biggest in the world.
Achievements:
- In 2016, the Government of India awarded him “Padma Shri”.
- In 2017, India Today magazine also ranked him 8th India’s most powerful people
- In 2018, he became a member of the central board committee of the Reserve Bank of India.
Conclusion:
Above mentioned are the Top 10 richest Indians as per their net worth based on an annual report of wealth and assets gathered and published by Forbes in 2019. You must have observed that some persons like Pallonji Mistry and Hinduja (has Indian ancestry) are not included in the above list who have foreign citizenship.
