India’s richest with clear goals

Mukesh Ambani, 60, the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Ltd, is India’s richest man with a net worth of ~2.5 trillion ($38 billion). He controls 40% of Reliance, which operates the largest refinery in the world, and is India’s most valuable company.

Apart from Reliance Industries, he owns the Mumbai Indians cricket team and property worth $400 million in Mumbai, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Earlier this year, he overtook Hong Kong’s Li Ka Shing to become Asia’s second richest man.

Ambani is also the chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, his most audacious gamble yet. Reliance is proposing to invest nearly ~3 trillion in this telecom venture (including planned capital expenditure) to set up a 4G wireless network and broadband lines across India.

“Data is the new oil. India does not need to import it. We have it in super-abundance,” Ambani said while speaking at the Indian Mobile Congress on September 28 .

He is credited with starting Reliance Communications Ltd (now a part of younger brother Anil Ambani’s group), and building the firm’s refinery and petrochemical factory at Jamnagar, Gujarat. Reliance is the single largest exporter. According to Bloomberg, Ambani also serves as a member of advisory council of Stanford Graduate School of Business.