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Great Business Leaders of India
The main difference
between a leader and others is that the individual truly sets an example for
others with his performance. Leaders perform the hardest tasks before they ask
others to do it- they literally show how it needs to be done and inspire others
to emulate them.
In the context of the professional world, the leader leads by examples, putting
in the hard yards when nobody expects them to do so and helping others achieve
their objectives. These professionals can be relied upon in the toughest times
to put their company’s interests over theirs.
In many ways a company’s health depends on the number of leaders it has been
able to create within its framework – people who can inspire and help others
with their own deeds and knowledge.
Most Respected
Business Leaders of India – Conglomerate Organisations
Ratan Tata
He
became the chairman of the famed Tata Group in 1991 replacing his father JRD
Tata. He was the guiding force behind Tata Consultancy Services when it started
issuing shares and the listing of Tata Motors on the New York Stock Exchange.
The Tata Indica range introduced in 1998 was pioneered by him. Another major
achievement on his part was the acquisition of an Anglo-Dutch aluminium and
steel producer Corus Group. Sealed on January 31, 2007 this deal helped to
create the 5th biggest steel producing company of the world.
Yet another successful acquisition was from Ford Motor Company of Jaguar &
Land Rover. He had also envisaged a car that would be worth only INR 1 lakh.
This dream was fulfilled with the Nano that was shown for the first time on
January 10, 2008 at the New Delhi Auto Expo. It was formally introduced on
March 23, 2009.
Adi Godrej
The
Chairman of the Godrej Group, Adi Godrej is responsible for the success attained
by the organization even during the times when the Indian economy was not
liberalized.
Besides being an industrialist, Godrej is a philanthropist and has been able to
organize and update the management set-ups in the company and also effected
several procedural betterments.
Once the national economy was liberalized, he changed the organizational
policies to deal with the new challenges. In the early part of 2000s the
organization concluded a decade long reformation process whereby every business
was converted into an independent entity.
He has been a prominent advocate of the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) and has set
up in Mumbai’s Vikhroli Township an environment friendly business campus. It
has a mangrove forest spanning 150 acres as well as a school for employees’
wards.
Azim Premji
The
Chairman of Wipro Limited took control of the family business in 1966 when he
was only 21 year old due to the demise of his father MH Premji. The
organization was then known as the Western India Vegetable Product Company.
Thanks to his guidance, the organization has started a period of
diversification and growth that can be termed as ambitious. It started by
making light bulbs and soon ventured into the following consumer products:
·
Soaps
·
Shampoos
·
Baby care products
·
Powder
The company entered
the information technology market during 1980s after the IBM was expelled
during 1975. The Wipro Chairman is known to be an economical and modest man
even though he has considerable wealth. He presently owns a Toyota Corolla,
likes company guest houses over hotels, and travels in economy class.
Business Week has declared him to be one of the leading global entrepreneurs.
The Wesleyan University of Middletown, Connecticut conferred on him an honorary
doctorate. The recognition was for his stupendous philanthropic activities.
Mukesh Ambani
The
Managing Director and Chairman of Reliance Industries is one of the richest men
in both Asia and the world and his own wealth is in excess of 1,45,000 Crores.
He became a part of the organization during 1991 and was responsible for the
biggest grassroots petroleum refinery of the world at Jamnagar.
As of now its capacity is approximately 33 million tons per year or 1.2 million
barrels every day. The organization also focuses on other areas like the
following:
·
Petrochemicals
·
Ports and other
infrastructure connected to them
·
Power
The company has also
bought a lot of stake in shale gas properties previously owned by Pioneer
Natural Resources, and Atlas Energy Inc.
Kumar Mangalam
Birla
The
Chairman of the Aditya Birla Group is a qualified chartered accountant who is
also a London Business School MBA and Honorary Fellow. He has served in a wide
variety of responsibilities such as the Chairman of SEBI Committee on Corporate
Governance, and the Chairman of the same organization’s Insider Trading
Committee.
He is also credited with India’s first ever corporate governance report. He is
also the Chancellor of BITS Pilani and its other branches at Hyderabad, Dubai,
and Goa. He also serves as the GD Birla Medical Research and Education
Foundation director.
Anil Ambani
The
Chairman of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group became a part of the
organization in 1983 as a co-CEO. He is often regarded as the brain behind
several groundbreaking developments in the capital markets sector of the
country.
His takeover of Adlabs is regarded as a major accomplishment on his part – a
film production and distribution house, and multiplex organization Adlabs also
has the sole dome theater of India. He has also entered into a JV with Steven
Spielberg, an acclaimed Hollywood filmmaker.
The deal has been valued at 825 million US dollars. He has shown a keen
interest in owing sports clubs and has previously tried to buy Newcastle United
and Everton.
Vijay Mallya
The Chairman of the UB
Group rose to the position in 1984. His major achievements may be mentioned as
below:
·
Acquired Whyte &
Mackay, a leading manufacturer of whiskey and scotch, in May 2007 for 595
million pounds
·
Also runs the Indian
Premier League cricket team Royal Challengers Bangalore
·
Set up Kingfisher
Airlines in 2005. Later on, he purchased 26 percent shares in the low cost
carrier Air Deccan and renamed it Kingfisher Red
·
He became a politician
during 2000 and became the Janata Party President replacing Subramanian Swamy.
At present he is a Rajya Sabha MP.
·
Acquired the Spyker F1
team, along with the Netherlands based Mol family, for 88 million Euros. It was
renamed Force India in 2008
·
He brought back Tipu
Sultan’s sword to India with a successful bid of 175 thousand pounds at a
London auction in 2004
·
UB Group sponsors
leading Kolkata based soccer clubs Mohun Bagan, and East Bengal
·
He was also successful
in winning back several possessions of Mahatma Gandhi by bidding 1.8 million
dollars at an auction in New York during March 2009
·
Mallya is in the group
that owns Queen’s Park Rangers FC along with Bernie Ecclestone, Lakshmi Mittal,
and Flavio Briatore
Anand Mahindra
The Managing Director
and Chairman of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd was employed as a Deputy Managing
Director during 1991. During April 1997 he became the MD and became the Vice
Chairman during January 2003.
He was one of the promoters of the Kotak Mahindra Finance, which became a bank
during 2003. He has also co-founded the Harvard Business School Association of
India. Yet another important milestone in his career has been Tech Mahindra’s
acquisition of Satyam Computer in 2009.
Most Respected
Business Leaders of India- Real Estate and Hospitality
Kushal Pal Singh
The CEO and Chairman
of DLF Ltd., Kushal Pal Singh has been able to transform Gurgaon into an
outsourcing hub that is famous across the world thanks to the following
facilities:
·
Office buildings
·
Shopping malls
·
Apartments
·
Leisure arrangements
In addition to their superb standards, these constructions are also safeguarded
against earthquake. He has had the distinction of being the richest real estate
businessman of the world in 2008.
He started working at the American Universal Electric Company in 1960 and when
it merged in 1979 with DLF Universal Limited, he assumed the position of the
managing director.
Under his leadership DLF now has an approximate land quantity of 10,255 acres.
Yogesh Chander
Deveshwar
He is the Chairman of
ITC Limited. He rejoined the organization in 1994 and was employed as a full
time vice chairman and director. He assumed the position of Chairman in 1996.
He was the moving force behind ITC’s rise as one of the leading providers of
fast moving consumer goods in India.
Most Respected
Business Leaders of India- Banks and Financial Institutions
Chanda Kochhar
She is the CEO and MD
of the ICICI Bank- she assumed control of the bank from KV Kamath during May
2009. From 2005 onwards she has been a regular feature of the “Most Powerful
Women in Business” list brought out by Fortune Magazine. She was inducted in the
“World’s 100 Most Powerful Women List” of Forbes during 2009.
Naina Lal Kidwai
The Country Head and
Group General Manager of the HSBC Group has also served as the Deputy CEO and
CEO of the organization apart from being the HSBC Securities and Capital Markets
India Private Limited Managing Director.
She rose to her present position in 2009. She has been a regular feature in the
Top Women in Business, a global list brought out by Forbes, has achieved the
12th position in the 2006 Global Listing of Women to Watch of the Wall Street
Journal. The Time Magazine, in 2002, included her in the list of 15 Global
Influentials.
Aditya Puri
The Managing Director
of HDFC Bank has held that post from September 1994 onwards and has worked in
the Indian and international banking sector for 38 years. He has also served
between 1992 and 1994 as the Citibank Malaysia CEO.
Om Prakash Bhatt
The former SBI
Chairman and, now, a Hindustan Unilever Ltd board of directors member has the
distinction of being the chairman with the longest term for SBI in recent
times. He was employed as SBI Chairman during June 2006.
In 1972 he initiated his career in the bank as probationary officer and hold
several important positions. Between January 2005 and April 2006 he has served
as the State Bank of Travancore Managing Director.
Most Respected
Business Leaders of India- IT and Technology
Narayana Murthy
The
chief mentor and founder of Infosys acted as its CEO for a 21 year period
between 1981 and 2002 after which he relinquished the position. At present, he
has widened his horizon to global promotion of India and social services.
He has initiated a venture fund named Catamaran Venture Fund with the funds he
got after he sold 800,000 shares of Infosys that were worth INR 174 crores.
Sudha Murthy, his wife, also pitched in with INR 430 crores, an amount she
earned after selling her shares in the company.
Murthy has stated that he wants Infosys to be an organization where people from
various countries, religions, and races work in a very spirited yet pleasant,
distinguished, and polite environment to give the clients the maximum possible
value.
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw
The Managing Director
and Chairman of Biocon Ltd started the organization with an initial capital of
INR 10 thousand in 1978. Its first operation was enzyme extraction from
papayas.
She had applied for loans at that time but was rejected because her company did
not have sufficient assets and biotechnology was a new field back then. In the
next few years the company has continued to grow in her guidance and is now the
largest biopharmaceutical organization in the country.
Subramaniam Ramadorai
The Vice Chairman of
Tata Consultancy Services and present Tata Elxsi Chairman started his
professional journey as a junior engineer. In 1979 he was given the
responsibility of establishing the organization’s US operations starting with
New York City.
He led the quality programs of the organization and took 16 Development Centers
of TCS to the Software Engineering Institute’s CMM Level 5, which is the most
important and best performance appraisal of the organization.
Shiv Nadar
The
Chairman of HCL Technologies started an organization named Microcomp for
selling teledigital calculators in India and the brand was Televista. HCL was
established with an initial capital of INR 187 thousand from its founders in
1976. The UP government also became an equity partner with 26% shares. HCL
Technologies went public in 1999 under the guidance of Nadar.
Most Respected
Business Leaders of India- Telecom and Automobile
Sunil Bharti
Mittal
In April
1976, at the tender age of 18 years Mittal, the Managing Director and Chairman
of Bharti Enterprises started making crankshafts for local bicycle makers and
this was his first business. He started with a capital of INR 20 thousand,
loaned from his father.
He sold the yarn and bicycle parts factories in 1980 and went to Mumbai in 1984
where he began assembling push-button phones. He was successful in winning one
of the 4 licenses that were initially auctioned in India in 1992.
The government consented to his plans in 1994 and he initiated, in 1995, the
services in Delhi. His organization Bharti Cellular Limited started the brand
AirTel. During November 2006 he entered into a joint venture with Wal-Mart and
started several retail outlets across the country.
He started Bharti Comtel in July 2006 with several important officials from NIS
Sparta, and Reliance ADAG. In recent years, he has bought the Kuwait based Zain
Telecom.
Brijmohan Lall Munjal
The
founder of the Hero Group started with a business of providing components to
bicycle manufacturers in Amritsar and near the city during the late 1940s. They
increased their distribution network gradually and by the first half of the
1950s their business had spread all over the country.
Hero Cycles Ltd upgraded its business activities to manufacturing from just
supplying from 1954 onwards. In 1984 it entered into a joint venture with the
Honda Group from Japan to start making motorcycles. –
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