Meet Manoj Modi, the man behind Mukesh Ambani’s $13 billion deal spree
He has no flashy titles and few outside India know his name. But in the halls of Reliance Industries Ltd, Manoj Modi has quietly become one of the most powerful forces behind the corporate empire of Asia's richest man.
Reserved and invisible to the public, Modi is viewed by many insiders as the right hand of Mukesh Ambani. He played a key role during negotiations for a $5.7 billion deal with Facebook Inc in April, backing Ambani and his children as they hashed out an agreement with the social networking giant, people familiar with the matter said.
As Ambani, 63, shifts his sprawling conglomerate's focus from petrochemicals to internet technologies, Modi is seen as a particularly influential voice. Facebook's investment in the group's Jio Platforms was followed by similar deals from a slew of private-equity funds, injecting $13 billion into the business and placing it firmly on Silicon Valley's radar.
The sixty-something, diminutive Modi rarely gives interviews and there's little in the public realm about his private life.
"It's not a company that advertises its organisational structure but the industry knows that Ambani and Modi are a strongly-bonded team - and together drive deal negotiation and
relentless execution to the last level of detail," said Vani Kola, MD of venture capital firm Kalaari Capital Partners, who persuaded Modi to make a rare public appearance at a conference last year, albeit by video.
Modi is a director at Reliance Retail Ltd and Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. At Kola's conference, he downplayed his skills. "I don't really negotiate," Modi said. "I don't understand strategy," he went on. "In fact, people internally know that I don't even have a vision." He described his role, saying, "I deal with our internal people, coaching them, mentoring them and guiding them on how something can be done."
But then came a hint of his thinking: "Our principle at Reliance is very simple: Unless everyone makes money while working with us, you cannot have a sustainable business."
In interviews, more than half-a-dozen executives in the technology industry, who have had dealings with Reliance, said Modi has a reputation for driving hard bargains. When dealing with startups, he often controls negotiations from behind the scenes by instructing executives how far to push, making an appearance near deal fruition, they said.
Modi has a big say in every deal and often a meeting with him signals the final stamp of approval. "He derives his power in the organisation not just because of his loyalty, but because of his very astute, smart and able negotiator skills," G. R. Gopinath, founder of Air Deccan, who had sold a stake in his cargo airline to Reliance in 2010. "Significantly, though without formal education from Ivy League universities, he has a very sharp mind and a rare insight and native genius to grasp modern technology in the Indian context."
Gopinath said Modi is "ruthlessly efficient" and manages to get the best possible deal for Reliance in mergers and acquisitions.
Modi is one of the few who have been with the company since the 1980s when Ambani's late father was building the oil-andpetrochemicals giant. A few years earlier, Manoj Harjivandas Modi and Ambani had studied at what was then called the University Department of Chemical Technology in Mumbai and become fast friends.
That's allowed Modi a chance to work with three generations of the Ambani dynasty: The late patriarch Dhirubhai, then Mukesh and his wife Nita, and now his children Isha and Akash.