WALTHAM, MA—Bloomberg, a New York-based financial data and media company recently profiled India’s next generation tycoons, selecting those who are based in India and are 35 and under.
“As India’s richest men hit their 60s and beyond, succession questions about the next generation of tycoons will increasingly emerge in a country where business is still dominated by family-run enterprises,” Bloomberg said in an article published this month.
Bloomberg profiled some of young guns of corporate India, selecting those who are 35 and under, based in India, have a public profile, and whose billionaire fathers are valued at more than $2 billion.
“Some have started their own ventures and avoided their fathers’ shadows. Others have pitched their tents inside the family enterprise,” according the Bloomberg article that was written by Bhuma Shrivastava.
Here’s a look at them as reported by Bloomberg:
Isha and Akash Ambani
“Isha and Akash are the 25-year-old, twin brother-and-sister scions of India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. They’re being groomed as the future of Reliance Industries Ltd., their father’s $42 billion conglomerate, as the company diversifies beyond energy and refineries into consumer-facing businesses,” reported Bloomberg.
Roshni Nadar Malhotra
The only daughter of technology billionaire Shiv Nadar, 34-year-old Roshni is chief executive officer and executive director of HCL Corp., the $7 billion holding firm for a group that includes listed HCL Technologies Ltd. and HCL Infosystems Ltd. Roshni returned to India in 2008 after a stint as a news producer at Sky News U.K. and soon took up the role, according to Bloomberg.
Adar Cyrus Poonawalla
The 35-year-old son of India’s seventh-richest man, Cyrus Poonawalla, is associated with two contrasting superlatives: Asia’s largest vaccine maker and one of India’s largest stud farms, Bloomberg said. After completing undergraduate business management studies at the University of Westminster in the U.K., Adar stepped into his father’s shoes and expanded the Serum Institute of India Ltd.’s operations across 140 countries, making it the third-largest vaccine producer in the world, added Bloomberg.
Kavin Bharti Mittal
The 28-year old son of Sunil Bharti Mittal inherited the entrepreneurial bug from his father, who started out at 18 making bicycle crankshafts and importing portable Suzuki generators before creating Bharti Airtel Ltd., India’s top wireless carrier. Kavin, at 20, founded AppSpark to develop applications for the mobile phones. In 2009, AppSpark launched an iPhone application, Movies Now, to help users buy film tickets on the move. In 2012, Kavin set up Hike Messenger, an instant-messaging service similar to WhatsApp. By June 2014, Hike M
essenger crossed 20 million users, catapulted by a privacy feature that lets teenagers flirt in private and hide chats from their parents. By then, it had received at least $21 million from Bharti Enterprises Pvt. Ltd. and SoftBank Corp. In August 2014,Tiger Global Management invested $65 million, according to Bloomberg.
Anand Piramal
When the 31-year-old son of billionaire Ajay Piramal joined his father’s group in 2011, he skipped the $4 billion conglomerate’s flagship healthcare, glass making and fund management businesses. Instead he set up Piramal Realty. He focuses only on Mumbai and its outskirts, resisting the temptation among developers of going national and burning cash, according to Bloomberg.
Aalok Shanghvi
The elder of the two Shanghvi siblings, Aalok is as media-shy as his billionaire father and India’s second-richest man, Dilip Shanghvi. His father is a first-generation entrepreneur who started out as a small-time medicine distributor in Kolkata in the 1980s and went on to set up India’s largest drug maker in Sun
Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., which acquired beleaguered peer Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. and Israel-based Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. to create a global generics producer with annual sales of $4.2 billion, Bloomberg reported.
Ananyashree Birla
Billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla was forced to take over as the Aditya Birla Group chairman in 1995 when he was just 28. His eldest daughter willingly turned entrepreneur when she was 17. In 2013, Ananyashree set up her venture, Svatantra Microfin Pvt. Ltd. to lend tiny loans to rural women for buying sewing machines or starting papadum businesses, according to Bloomberg.
