BUSINESS TYCOONS OF FIVE COMPANIES

Lakshmi Mittal

Lakshmi Niwas Mittal was born on 15 June 1950. He is an Indian steel magnate. He is the chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaking company.Mittal owns 41 percent of ArcelorMittal and holds a 34 percent stake in the Queens Park Rangers F.C. football team.

Mittal is the richest man living in Europe and the richest man with an Asian nationality. Despite being the wealthiest man in Britain, he does not hold British citizenship. He was ranked the sixth richest person in the world by Forbes in 2011, but dropped to 21st place in 2012, due to having lost $10.4 billion the previous year. In spite of the drop, Forbe sestimates that he still had a personal wealth of US$16 billion in October 2012. He is also the 47th "most powerful person" of the 70 individuals named in Forbes' "Most Powerful People" list for 2012. His daughter Vanisha Mittal's wedding was the second most expensive in recorded history.

Mittal has been a member of the board of directors of Goldman Sachs since 2008, and is also member of the board of directors of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company.[12] He sits on the World Steel Association's executive committee, and is a member of the Indian Prime Minister’s Global Advisory Council, the Foreign Investment Council in Kazakhstan, the World Economic Forum’s International Business Council, and the Presidential International Advisory Board of Mozambique. He also sits on the advisory board of the Kellogg School of Management in the US and is a member of the board of trustees of Cleveland Clinic.

In 2006, The Sunday Times named him "Business Person of 2006", the Financial Times named him "Person of the Year", and Time magazine named him "International Newsmaker of the Year 2006".In 2007, Time magazine included him in their "100 most influential persons in the world".

Early life and career

Lakshmi Nivas Mittal was born into a Indian business family in Rajgarh tehsil (also known as Sadulpur) of Churu district in Rajasthan, India. His family moved from (Rajgarh) Sadulpur, Rajasthan to Calcutta in West Bengal. Mittal has two siblings - Pramod Mittal and Vinod Mittal.

He graduated from St. Xavier's College, Calcutta with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in business and accounting. His father, Mohan Lal Mittal, ran a steel business, Nippon Denro Ispat. Until the 1990s, the family's main assets in India were a cold-rolling mill for sheet steels in Nagpur and an alloy steels plant near Pune. Today, the family business, including a large integrated steel plant near Mumbai, is run by Pramod and Vinod, but Lakshmi has no connection with it.

Philanthropy

Mittal with then-president of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 2006]] After witnessing India win only one medal, bronze, in the 2000 Summer Olympics, and one medal, silver, at the 2004 Summer Olympics, Mittal decided to set up Mittal Champions Trustwith US$9 million to support 10 Indian athletes with world-beating potential. In 2008, Mittal awarded Abhinav Bindra with Rs. 1.5 Crore (Rs. 15 million), for getting India its first individual Olympic gold medal in shooting.

For Comic Relief 2007, he matched the money raised (~£1 million) on the celebrity special BBC programme, The Apprentice.

In 2002, Lakshmi Niwas Mittal and Usha Mittal foundation and the Government of Rajasthan partnered together to establish a university named the LNM Institute of Information Technology (LNMIIT) in Jaipur as an autonomous non-profit organization.

In 2009, Lakshmi Niwas Mittal and Usha Mittal foundation along with Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan founded the Usha Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management in New Delhi.

Criticism and allegations

Lakshmi Mittal successfully employed Marek Dochnal's consultancy to influence Polish officials in the privatization of PHS steel group, which was Poland's largest. Dochnal was later arrested for bribing Polish officials on behalf of Russian agents in a separate affair.[18]

In 2007, Polish government said it wants to renegotiate the 2004 sale to Arcelor Mittal.

Slave-labour allegations and questionable safety records

Employees of Mittal have accused him of "slave labour" conditions after multiple fatalities in his mines.During December 2004, twenty-three miners died in explosions in his mines in Kazakhstan caused by faulty gas detectors.

The Mittal Affair: "Cash for Influence"

In 2002, Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price obtained a letter written by Tony Blair to the Romanian Government in support of Mittal's LNM steel company, which was in the process of bidding to buy Romania's state-owned steel industry.This revelation caused controversy, because Mittal had given £125,000 to the British Labour Party the previous year. Although Blair defended his letter as simply "celebrating the success" of a British company, he was criticised because LNM was registered in the Dutch Antilles and employed less than 1% of its workforce in the UK.LNM was a "major global competitor of Britain's own struggling steel industry"

Blair's letter hinted that the privatisation of the firm and sale to Mittal might help smooth the way for Romania's entry into the European Union.It also had a passage, removed just prior to Blair's signing of it, describing Mittal as "a friend"

Environmental damage

Mittal purchased the Irish Steel plant based in Cork from the government for a nominal fee of £1 m. Three years later in 2001, it was closed, leaving 400 people redundant. Subsequent environmental issues at the site have been a cause for criticism. The Government tried to sue in the High Court to have him pay for the clean-up of Cork Harbour but failed. The clean up was expected to cost €70m.

Personal life

His residence at 18-19 Kensington Palace Gardens--which was purchased from Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone in 2004 for £57 million (US$128 million)--made it the world's most expensive house at the time. Mittal's house in Kensington, London is decorated with marble taken from the same quarry that supplied the Taj Mahal. The extravagant show of wealth has been referred to as the "Taj Mittal". It has 12 bedrooms, an indoor pool, Turkish baths and parking for 20 cars. He is a vegetarian.

Mittal bought No. 9A Palace Greens, Kensington Gardens, formerly the British Philippines embassy, at £70 million in 2008 for his daughter Vanisha Mittal who is married to Amit Bhatia, a businessman and a philanthropist. Being a vegetarian, Mittal threw a lavish 'vegetarian reception' for Vanisha in the Palace of Versailles in France.

Mittal owns three prime properties collectively worth £500 million on the "Billionaire's Row" at Kensington Palace Gardens. In 2005, he also bought a colonial bungalow for $30 million at No. 22, Aurangzeb Road in New Delhi, India, the most exclusive street in the city occupied by embassies and millionaires, and rebuilt it as a house.

Awards and honors

Year of Award or Honor

Name of Award or Honor Awarding Organization

2010 "Dostyk" 1 Republic of Kazakhstan.

2008 Forbes Lifetime Achievement Award Forbes.

2008 Padma Vibhushan Government of India.

2007 Grand Cross of Civil Merit Government of Spain.

2007Dwight D. Eisenhower Global Leadership Award[36]

Business Council for International Understanding.[37]

2007 Fellowship King's College London.

2004 European Businessman of the Year Forbes.

2004 Entrepreneur of the Year Wall Street Journal.

2004 8th honorary Willy Korf Steel Vision AwardAmerican Metal Market and World Steel Dynamics.

1996 Steel Maker of the Year New Steel.

Anil Ambani

Anil Dhirubhai Ambani was born on 4 June 1959, is an Indian businessman. He is the chairman of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, one of the largest private conglomerates in India. Anil's elder brother Mukesh Ambani,who heads as the chairman of Reliance Industries. The Ambani family is the richest family in India and one of the richest in the world, their wealth inherited from Dhirubhai Ambani, founder of largest Indian conglomerate Reliance Group. He is known for having had affairs with bollywood divas and his affair with Sushmita Sen is well known.

He is a member of the Board of Overseers at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the member of the Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur; Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.  He is a member of the Central Advisory Committee, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission. In March 2006, he resigned. He is also the Chairman of Board of Governors of DA-IICT,Gandhinagar.

Career

Ambani joined Reliance Industries, the company founded by his late father Dhirubhai Ambani, in 1983 as Co-Chief Executive Officer and is credited with having pioneered many financial innovations in the Indian capital markets. For example, he led India's first forays into overseas capital markets with international public offerings of global depositary receipts, convertibles and bonds. He directed Reliance in its efforts to raise, since 1991, around US$2 billion from overseas financial markets; with a 100-year Yankee bond issue in January 1997 being the high point, after which people regarded him as a financial wizaratid. He along with his brother, Mukesh Ambani, has steered the Reliance Group to its current status as India's leading textiles, petroleum, petrochemicals, power, and telecom company. He is a close friend of movie star Amitabh Bachchan and Subrata Roy. One of his major achievements in the entertainment industry is the takeover of Adlabs, the movie production to distribution to multiplex company that owns India's only dome theatre and the recently announced joint venture worth US$ 825 million with Steven Spielberg. He has been embroiled in a dispute with his brother, Mukesh Ambani, over the supply of gas from the latter's KG basin.

He recently topped Business Sheet's "world's biggest loser" list of business leaders who lost money in the late 2000s recession,losing $32.5 billion in 2008, which brought him out of the top ten list to number 34 in 2009.

Awards and recognition

Conferred the 'Businessman of the Year 1997' award by India's leading business magazine Business India, December 1997.

Life PersonalAnil Ambani is married to Bollywood Actress Tina Munim and has two sons Jai Anmol and Jai Anshul. He has taken part in theMumbai Marathon race. Ambani is also a fan of Premier League club, Newcastle United and was extremely close to buying the club in September 2008. In June 2004, Anil was elected as an Independent Member of the Rajya Sabha - upper house of the Parliament of India. He is a vegetarian. He is known for having had affairs with bollywood divas and his love affair with former miss universe Sushmita Sen is well known.

Ratan Tata

Ratan Naval Tata was born on 28 December 1937.He is an Indian businessman who became chairman (1991– Present) of the Tata Group, a Mumbai-based conglomerate.He is a member of a prominent Tata family of Indian industrialists and philanthropists.

Among many other honours accorded him during his career, Tata received the Padma Bhushan, one of India’s most distinguished civilian awards, in 2000 and Padma Vibhushan in 2008 and Lifetime Achievement Award awarded by prestigious Rockefeller Foundation in 2012.He has also been ranked as India's most powerful CEO.

Early life

Ratan is the great-grandson of Tata group founder Jamshedji Tata. Ratan's parents separated in the mid-1940s, when he was seven and his younger brother Jimmy was five years old. Their mother moved out and both boys were raised by their grandmother Lady Navajbai.

Tata started sol in Bombay at Campion School and finished at Cathedral and John Connon School.Ratan Tata completed his B.S. in architecture with structural engineering from Cornell University in 1962, and the Advanced Management Program from Harvard Business School in 1975. He is a member of the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity.

Career at Tata Sons

Tata began his career at the Tata empire in 1962; he initially worked on the shop floor of Tata Steel, shovelling limestone and handling the blast furnace.In 1971, he was appointed the Director of National Radio and Electronics (Nelco), which was in dire straits when he came on board: with losses of 40% and barely 2% share of the consumer electronics market. However, just when he turned it around from 2% to 25% market share, the Emergency was declared. A weak economy and labour issues compounded the problem and Nelco was quickly near collapse again.

For his next assignment, in 1977 he was asked to turn around the sick Empress Mills, which he did. However, he was refused an Rs 50 lakh investment required to make the textile unit competitive. Empress Mills floundered and was finally closed in 1986.

In 1981, JRD Tata stepped down as Tata Industries chairman, naming Ratan as his successor. He was heavily criticized for lacking experience in running a company of the scale of Tata Industries.

In 1991, he was appointed group chairman of the Tata group. As group chairman, he has been responsible for converting "the corporate commonwealth" of different Tata-affiliated companies into a cohesive company. He has been responsible for the acquisition of Tetley,Jaguar Land Rover and Corus, which have turned Tata from a largely India-centric company into a global business, with 65% revenues coming from abroad. He also pushed the development of Indica and the Nano. He is widely credited for the success of the Tata Group of companies, especially after the liberalization of controls after the 1990s. In August 2007, Ratan Tata lead Tata Group's acquisition of British steel maker Corus. At that time, this was the largest takeover of a foreign company by an Indian company, and resulted in Tata Group becoming the fifth largest steel producer in the world. According to the BBC, however, some analysts criticized the move, saying that Tata Group had overpaid for Corus and had prioritized national pride before its shareholders.

Tata is set to retire in December 2012 to be succeeded by Cyrus Mistry, the 44-year-old son of Pallonji Mistry and managing director of Shapoorji Pallonji Group.

Honours, awards and international recognition

Ratan Tata serves in senior capacities in various organisations in India and he is a member of the Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry. Tata is on the board of governors of the East-West Center, the advisory board of RAND's Center for Asia Pacific Policy and serves on the program board of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's India AIDS initiative. Ratan Tata's foreign affiliations include membership of the international advisory boards of the Mitsubishi Corporation, the American International Group, JP Morgan Chase andBooz Allen Hamilton. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the RAND Corporation, University of Southern California andCornell University.  He also serves as a board member on the Republic of South Africa's International Investment Council and is a member of the Asia-Pacific advisory committee for the New York Stock Exchange. In 2010, he joined BMB Group as an advisory board member.

In 2009, Tata was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (K.B.E.).

Year Name Awarding organization

2011 Hospitality Hall Of Honor Recognizing Taj Hotels.

2011 ABLF Lifetime Achievement Award (India) Asian Business Leadership Forum Awards

2010 Business Leader of the Year The Asian Awards.

2010 Honorary Doctor of Laws Pepperdine University.

2010 Legend in Leadership Award Yale University.

2010 Businessman of the Decade Federation of Indo-Israel Chambers of Commerce.

2008 Honorary Doctor of Science Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.

2008 Honorary Doctor of Law University of Cambridge.

2007 Honorary Fellow London School of Economics.

2007 Honorary Citizen of Singapore Singapore government.

2007 Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

2005 Honorary Doctor of Science University of Warwick.

2004 Honorary Degree of Doctor of Technology Asian Institute of Technology.

2004 Honorary Economic Advisor Hangzhou, China.

2001 Honorary Doctor of Business Administration Ohio State University.

FIRST Award for Responsible Capitalism. 26th Robert S. Hatfield Fellow in Economic Education, awarded by Cornell University.

Recipient of the 'Global Indian Award' at the NASSCOM Global Leadership Awards 2008.

Azim Premji

Azim Hashim Premji (born 24 July 1945) is an Indian business tycoon and philanthropist who is the chairman of Wipro Limited, guiding the company through four decades of diversification and growth to emerge as one of the Indian leaders in the software industry. According to Forbes, he is currently the third wealthiest Indian, and the 41st richest in the world, with a personal wealth of $12.2 billion in 2012. In 2000, he was voted among the 20 most powerful men in the world by Asiaweek. He has twice been listed among the 100 most influential people by TIME Magazine, once in 2004 and more recently in 2011. Premji owns 79 percent of Wipro and also owns a private equity fund, PremjiInvest, which manages his $1 billion personal portfolio.

Early life and career

When Azim Premji took over as its head, Wipro dealt in hydrogenated cooking fats and later diversified to bakery fats, ethnic ingredient based toiletries, hair care soaps, baby toiletries, lighting products, and hydraulic cylinders. Thereafter Premji made a focused shift from soaps to software. The Amalner-based vanaspathi manufacturing company, the Western India Products later became Wipro Products Ltd and Wipro Limited subsequently. Under Premji’s leadership Wipro embarked on an ambitious phase of expansion and diversification. The Company began manufacturing light bulbs with and other consumer products including soaps, baby care products, shampoos, powder etc.

In the 1980s Wipro entered the IT field, taking advantage of the exit of IBM from the Indian market in 1975. Thus, Wipro started manufacturing computer hardware, software development and related items, under a special license from Sentinel. As a result, the $1.5 million company in hydrogenated cooking fats grew within a few decades to an over $6 billion diversified, integrated corporation in services, medical systems, technology products and consumer items with offices worldwide. The company’s IT division became the world's first to win SEI CMM level 5 and

PCMM Level 5 (People Capability Maturity Model) certification, the latest in quality standards. A large percentage of the company’s revenues are generated by the IT division. Wipro works with leading Fortune 500 companies. Wipro also has a joint venture in Medical Systems with General Electric company.

Wipro Consumer Care launched brands like Santoor and the Wipro Shikakai  in 1986; Santoor Talc and Wipro Baby Soft in 1991; Santoor Facewash, Wipro Sanjeevani Honey and Wipro Safewash  in 2004; Santoor Handwash in 2006; Wipro Sweet 'n' Healthy and Chandrika Handwash in 2007 and Santoor Deo  in 2010.

Wipro Consumer Care acquired brands like Glucovita in 2003; Chandrika in 2004; North West in 2006; Unza in 2007; Enchanteur and Romano in 2008 and Yardley in 2009 and Aramusk in 2011.

Azim Premji founded Wipro Lighting and Wipro GE Medical Systems in 1991; Wipro Net in 1999; netKracker  in 2000; Wipro Water in 2008; and Wipro EcoEnergy in 2009.

Personal life

Azim Premji is married to Yasmeen. The couple has two children, Rishad and Tariq. Rishad is currently the Chief Strategy Officer of IT Business, Wipro.

Premji has been recognised by Business Week as one of the Greatest Entrepreneurs for being responsible for Wipro emerging as one of the world’s fastest growing companies. In 2000, he was conferred an honorary doctorate by the Manipal Academy of Higher Education.

In 2006, Azim Premji was awarded Lakshya Business Visionary by National Institute of Industrial Engineering, Mumbai. He was awarded a Doctor of Literature (D.Litt.), an honorary degree, from the Aligarh Muslim University on 18 June 2008 on the occasion of 58th Convocation Ceremony of the University. In 2009, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut for his outstanding philanthropic work. In 2005 the government of India honored him with the title of Padma Bhushan for his outstanding work in trade and commerce.

In 2011, he has been awarded Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award by the Government of India.

Philanthropy

Wipro Equity Reward Trust

In 1984, Azim Premji established the Wipro Equity Reward Trust to allow employees to acquire stake in Wipro's success and growth. The WERT, which is administered by a Board of Trustees

is designed to give eligible employees the right to receive restricted shares and other compensation benefits at the stipulated times and conditions. Such compensation benefits include voluntary contributions, loans, interest and dividends on investments in the WERT and other similar benefits. Shares from the WERT are issued in the joint names of the WERT and the employee until such restrictions and obligations are fulfilled by the employee. After a four-year period, complete ownership of the shares is transferred to the employee.

If employment is terminated by death, disability or retirement, his or her restricted shares are transferred to the employee’s legal heirs or continue to be held by the employee, as the case may be, and such individuals may exercise any rights to those shares for up to 90 days after employment has ceased.

Azim Premji Foundation and university

In 2001, he founded Azim Premji Foundation, a non-profit organisation, with a vision to significantly contribute to achieving quality universal education that facilitates a just, equitable, humane and sustainable society. The Foundation works in the area of elementary education to pilot and develop 'proofs of concept' that have a potential for systemic change in India's 1.3 million government-run schools. A specific focus is on working in rural areas where the majority of these schools exist. This choice to work with elementary education (Class I to VIII) in rural government-run is a response to evidence of educational attainment in India.

In December 2010, Premji pledged to donate $2 billion for improving school education in India. This has been done by transferring 213 million equity shares of Wipro Ltd, held by a few entities controlled by him, to the Azim Premji Trust. This donation is the largest of its kind in India.

The Azim Premji University was established under an act of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly to run programmes to develop education and development professionals, offer alternative models for educational change and also invest in educational research to continuously stretch the boundaries of educational thinking. Currently the university conducts three degree awarding programmes:

Masters in Development, Masters in Education, Masters in Teacher Education.

The Continuing Education Programme aims to transform existing talent in the fields of education and development. The programme is facilitated by the University Resource Centre which provides learning content and capacity building programmes for professionals in education and development through short-term certified courses.

Gautam Adani  

Gautam Adani was born on 24 June 1962. He is an Indian entrepreneur and self-made billionaire who is

the Chairman of Adani Group. The Adani Group is a globally integrated infrastructure player with

businesses spanning coal trading, coal mining, oil & gas exploration, ports, multi-modal logistics, power

generation & transmission andgas distribution. With a business experience of more than 33 years, Gautam

Adani is a first generation entrepreneur who has led the Adani group from a modest background to create

a $8 billion professionally-managed empire in a relatively short period of time. He is said to be among the

100 most influential businessmen worldwide in shipping trade and developing shipping related

infrastructure. He has also been recognized for establishing the modern Mundra port which was selected

as the best port in 2006 by the oldest and the most influential British publication for shipping business,

Lloyd.

Personal Life

Gautam Adani is married to Dr Priti Adani who is a Bachelor in dental surgery and the Chairperson of Adani Foundation, the CSR arm of the Adani Group. They have two sons. The elder one, Karan Adani is a graduate from the Purdue University, USA and is presently the Executive Director of Adani Ports and SEZ, recently got engaged with Paridhi and the younger son is Jeet Adani.

Career or Business

Choosing not to join his father’s textile unit in Ahmedabad, Gautam Adani instead preferred to move to Mumbai to try his luck. He opened his innings by working as a diamond sorter at Mahindra Brothers for 2 years and then went on to set up his own diamond brokerage business in Mumbai, India. The trading initiative was a success. The young Gautam made his first million within a year, at the age of 20, a big deal during the 80’s.This success caught the eye of Mahasukh Adani, Gautam’s elder brother and a self-made entrepreneur. Mahasukh called Gautam back to their hometown – Ahmedabad - a city in the western part of India, to run his newly purchased plastic factory. Soon, Gautam began commodity trading by importing Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), a key raw material for manufacturing plastic. While

working at his brother's plastics unit, Gautam Adani gained valuable working experience as he learnt the intricacies of commodity trade.

The Adani Group had a quiet beginning, but Gautam’s entrepreneurial and ambitious vision, and rigorous hard work along with his talented and experienced management team made Adani Group one of the fastest growing professionally managed conglomerates in India. [5]

In 1988, he established Adani Exports Limited (now known as the Adani Enterprises Ltd), the flagship company of the Adani Group, that traded in a variety of power and agricultural commodities. The economic liberalization in 1991 fuelled the rapid growth of the business and the huge profitability of Adani Exports provided further capital for Gautam Adani to expand his business.

In 1993, the Gujarat government invited private companies to run the Mundra Port and in 1995 the contract was given to Adani Group. Today, Mundra Port is the largest Private Sector port in India, with capability of handling close to 80 million tonnes of cargo per annum.

Gautam Adani is also the Founder and Promoter of Adani Power Ltd (APL), a power business arm of Adani Group. Adani Power has delivered thermal power plant with capacity of 4620 MW, which has been a sole reason for the company to gain the prestige of being the largest private thermal power producer of the country.

Adani Power has its head office in Ahmedabad, Gujarat and is ranked #334 in top companies in India in Fortune India 500 list of 2011. Adani Power enjoys the status of being India’s largest solar power producer with capacity 40MW. At present, APL maneuvers five supercritical boilers of 660MW each at Mundra, Gujrat in addition to a mega solar plant of 40MW at Bitta Naliya in Kutch District, Gujrat. The thermal power plant at Mundra is the single thermal power plant in the country that has won the certification by UN under CDM. Besides, it is the first company in India to obtain the supercritical technology. 

Activities

In 1996, Gautam Adani set up the Adani Foundation as the Corporate Social Responsibility arm of the Adani Group for undertaking activities to ensure sustainable development and create harmony with people residing in the neighborhood of the Group's operations. The Group invests ~1% of profit in community initiatives through the Adani Foundation. Adani Foundation operates in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh and runs projects in four key areas:

Education - especially primary education Medical - clinics, JAVA,C++ and HIV programmer

Environmental Protection - typically at the local community level Charitable Activities - supporting poor villagers and promoting the rights of women