Mukesh Ambani is the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Limited, India’s largest private sector company. His wealth is estimated at US$ 19 billion as of November 2006, making him one of World’s richest persons. Mukesh and younger brother Anil are sons of the founder of Reliance Industries, Dhirubhai Ambani .
Mukesh Ambani was born on April 19, 1957 in Mumbai. His father Dhirubhai Ambani was then a small businessman who later on rose to become one of the legends of Indian industry. Mukesh Ambani did his Bachelors in Chemical Engineering from University of Bombay and Masters in Business Administration from Stanford University, USA.
Mukesh Ambani joined Reliance in 1981 and was the brain behind Reliance’s backward integration from textiles into polyester fibres and further into petrochemicals. During the process of backward integration, Mukesh Ambani led the creation of 51 new, world-class manufacturing facilities involving diverse technologies that raised Reliance’s manufacturing capacities manifold.
World’s largest grassroots petroleum refinery at Jamnagar is the brainchild of Mukesh Ambani. He was also the incharge of Dhirubhai’s dream project Reliance Infocomm. But after the split in the Reliance Empire, Reliance Infocomm went to his brother Anil Ambani. Mukesh Ambani is now planning to enter retail sector in a big way. He has plans to establish big retail stores all over the country. Recently, he also entered into an agreement with Haryana Government to establish a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) with an investment running into thousands of crores.
Mukesh Ambani has many achievements and honours to his name. Mukesh Ambani was chosen as the ET Business leader of the Year 2006. He was ranked 42nd among the World’s Most Respected Business Leaders and second among the four Indian CEOs featured in a survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers and published in Financial Times, London, November 2004. He was conferred the World Communication Award for the Most Influential Person in Telecommunications in 2004 by Total Telecom, October, 2004. Mukesh Ambani was also conferred the Asia Society Leadership Award by the Asia Society, Washington D.C., USA,