Succession planning is kicking into high gear at India’s family-owned conglomerates.
As the existing cohort of aging tycoons look to the future, their heirs are taking on increasingly important positions at major business empires — including those belonging to the Ambanis, Adanis, Birlas and beyond.
In all, there are 10 Indian families collectively worth $382 billion where scions age 40 and under now occupy prominent positions, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That’s three times more than what the equivalent Chinese heirs can expect to inherit.
That wealth gap reflects the divergent economic trajectories of the two countries. While Chinese stocks have slumped as growth has weakened, knocking billionaires’ fortunes, optimism in India’s long-term potential is rising, and its equities are trading around all-time highs.
As the Indian economy expands, so, too, are the conglomerates that are increasingly diversifying into new areas like green energy and e-commerce. Most hope to tap the younger consumers of the world’s most populous nation, and it’s often here that patriarchs expect their children — many armed with degrees from top-tier U.S. and UK universities — to step up.
Take the Birlas, a family that created one of the oldest Indian businesses, tracing its roots back more than 165 years to India’s pre-independence era. Current patriarch Kumar Mangalam Birla just recently elevated heirs singer Ananya and ex-cricketer Aryaman Vikram to the boards of three of the clan’s businesses.
“Their nuanced understanding of new-age business models and emerging shifts in consumer behavior will infuse fresh energy to the board,” Kumar said when they joined the fashion arm in January 2023.
In India, where founders still typically own stakes of 50% or more in their operations, appointing children to public boards tends to be seen as a natural progression rather than the breach of corporate governance it might be considered in other markets.
Another major conglomerate family that has recently elevated scions to prominent roles is the Ambanis. In August, Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest person, appointed his three children as nonexecutive directors to the board of his flagship company, Reliance Industries Ltd., saying he would spend the next five years grooming them for success.
The Ambanis know better than most the importance of succession planning. Anil Ambani, Mukesh’s younger brother, received Reliance’s telecom, financial services and other fledgling businesses in 2005 as part of a family pact after years of fraternal feuding. While Mukesh’s oil and petrochemicals operations flourished, Anil’s assets dwindled; and in 2019, his telecom unit filed for bankruptcy.
How the next-generation members across all the dynasties perform in their new roles will be closely watched — by investors and their wider families alike — to see whether they can sustain the entrepreneurial leadership and success of their seniors.
“It’s often a make-or-break situation,” said Kavil Ramachandran, a professor at the Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. Not all heirs have the professional track record normally needed for such big jobs, Ramachandran said. “Most ascend to the top via the elevator route.”
The families either declined to comment on their wealth valuations and succession or didn’t reply.
Here are the 16 heirs age 40 or under who are preparing to lead the operations at some of Indian’s richest clans. Several of these are expected to share their inheritance with siblings and cousins. For Pallon Mistry, for example, this includes both his sister and Firoz and Zahan, the children of Shapoor’s brother Cyrus, who died in a car crash.
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Akash, Isha and Anant Ambani
Parent: Mukesh Ambani
Family wealth: $113.5 billion
Company: Reliance Industries
Heir notes: Akash, who studied economics at Brown University in the U.S., is the chair of Reliance’s telecom arm, Jio Infocomm. His twin sister, Isha, has an MBA from Stanford University and is a nonexecutive director at the conglomerate’s e-commerce arm, Reliance Retail Ventures. Anant, who like his brother holds a degree from Brown, is closely associated with the conglomerate’s renewable-energy transition.
Company notes: Mumbai-based Reliance Industries is India’s biggest company by market value. As well as owning the world’s largest oil-refining complex, it has been expanding into areas like green energy, e-commerce, mobile phones and financial services.
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Karan and Jeet Adani
Parent: Gautam Adani
Family wealth: $102.4 billion
Company: Adani Group
Heir notes: The oldest son, Karan, an economics graduate from Purdue University in the U.S., is managing director of Adani Ports. His brother Jeet, who attended the University of Pennsylvania, is vice president of group finance at the flagship Adani Enterprises.
Company notes: The Adani Group, which started with a small agri-trading firm in 1988, is now one of India’s major infrastructure conglomerates. It owns the country’s biggest private port and is among the world’s largest coal traders.
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Pallon Mistry
Parent: Shapoor Mistry
Family wealth: $37.7 billion
Company: Shapoorji Pallonji Group
Heir notes: Shapoor Mistry’s son Pallon, who completed his master’s degree at Imperial College London, sits as a director on the Shapoorji Pallonji & Co. board.
Company notes: The business, founded in 1865 as a construction enterprise, now spans industries including engineering and real estate. It has built luxury hotels, stadiums, palaces and factories across Asia, with landmark projects such as the Reserve Bank of India in Mumbai and the Al Alam Palace for the Sultan of Oman. The founding family also owns a stake in Tata Sons, the main holding company behind Tata Group that controls Jaguar Land Rover, and had an epic showdown with the cars-to-coffee conglomerate.
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Aalok Shanghvi
Parent: Dilip Shanghvi
Family wealth: $26.7 billion
Company: Sun Pharmaceutical Industries
Heir notes: Aalok, who has a degree in cellular and molecular biology from the University of Michigan, is an executive director at Sun Pharma.
Company notes: The family’s Sun Pharma, founded in 1983, is one of the world’s largest generic drugmakers. It has more than 40 manufacturing facilities and 41,000 employees.
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Manjri Chandak
Parent: Radhakishan Damani
Family wealth: $21.1 billion
Company: Avenue Supermarts
Heir notes: Manjri holds a post-graduate degree in finance and investment from the University of Nottingham and sits on Avenue Supermarts’s board.
Company notes: Avenue Supermarts started with D-Mart, a chain of no-frills supermarkets that Radhakishan Damani founded in the early 2000s after making a fortune trading Indian stocks. It has since become a major retail chain, with almost 350 stores in India. The company doesn’t focus much on loyalty programs, social media or other new-fangled strategies — it just sells cheap stuff. Damani has been called India’s Sam Walton.
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Shravin Mittal
Parent: Sunil Mittal
Family wealth: $19 billion
Company: Bharti Enterprises
Heir notes: Shravin earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and worked in private equity and investment banking before taking roles in the family’s businesses. He’s the founder of Unbound, a tech-focused investment firm; the managing director of Bharti Global, the family’s investment arm; and a director at Airtel Africa.
Company notes: The operations of New Delhi-based Bharti Enterprises span sectors including tech and financial services, with operations in India and many African nations. Its flagship business, Bharti Airtel, is one of the world’s biggest mobile-service providers and India’s No. 2 wireless operator. It’s the only private-sector company that held its ground despite the disruption unleashed by Ambani’s Reliance Jio Infocomm in 2006. Bharti founder Sunil Mittal also helped rescue OneWeb, a rival of Elon Musk’s Starlink that will provide satellite broadband services.
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Ananya and Aryaman Vikram Birla
Parent: Kumar Mangalam Birla
Family wealth: $18.8 billion
Company: Aditya Birla Group
Heir notes: Both Ananya and Aryaman are board directors at the family’s fashion, paints and strategy arms. Aryaman, a professional cricketer before joining the conglomerate, founded and runs Aditya Birla Ventures. Ananya, who started a microfinance organization at the age of 17, is also a singer.
Company notes: The Aditya Birla Group is one of India’s oldest family-owned businesses. It started as a cotton-trading company in the 19th century and now has interests in industries including metals, financial services and retail. One of the family’s ancestors was a close confidante of Mahatma Gandhi and supported India’s freedom movement against the British.
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Varun Jaipuria
Parent: Ravi Jaipuria
Family wealth: $15.6 billion
Company: RJ Corp.
Heir notes: Varun is executive vice chairman of Varun Beverages. He has a degree in international business from Regent’s University London and attended a Harvard Business School leadership development program.
Company notes: RJ Corp.’s operations span food, drinks, health care and education. The conglomerate, though, is best known for its subsidiary Varun Beverages, a bottling and distribution company that is one of the largest international franchisees of PepsiCo outside the U.S.
Parent: Uday Kotak
Family wealth: $14.1 billion
Company: Kotak Mahindra Bank
Heir notes: Jay is senior vice president of conglomerate relationships at Kotak Mahindra Bank and co-head of the digital bank. He has a B.A. in history from Columbia University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Company notes: Kotak Mahindra Bank, based in Mumbai, provides commercial, investment banking, insurance and brokerage services. It has a network of about 1,800 branches.
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Aman, Shaan and Varun Mehta
Parent: Samir and Sudhir Mehta
Family wealth: $13.2 billion
Company: Torrent Group
Heir notes: Aman, who earned an MBA from Columbia University, joined the Torrent Pharma board in August 2022. He heads the company’s Indian business, while his brother Shaan, also a Columbia MBA holder, is general manager. Varun, a son of Samir’s brother Sudhir, is a director at Torrent Power and holds an MBA from INSEAD.
Company notes: Torrent Group operates one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in India, Torrent Pharma. It also has another publicly traded division, Torrent Power, as well as a gas distribution business and a power-cable supply operation.