Ambanis, Poonawala among ‘emerging leaders’

NEW YORK: Reliance Jio Board Directors Isha Ambani and Akash Ambani, Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla and Byju Raveendran, co-founder of India's leading education technology company Byju's, are among the "emerging leaders" from across the world named by Fortune in its annual list of influential people under the age of 40.

The 2020 Fortune 40 Under 40 list highlights 40 influential people each in five categories of finance, technology, healthcare, government and politics, and media and entertainment from around the world.

Featured in the list are 28year old Ambani twins, children of Reliance Chairman billionaire Mukesh Ambani and Nita Ambani.

"They say data is the new oil- and when it comes to Reliance Industries, India's largest company, that's literally the case. The 47-year-old conglomerate amassed a fortune in petrochemicals before dominating India's mobile connectivity market with Jio, a low-cost wireless carrier it debuted in 2016," Fortune said.

"As Jio board members, they helped seal the company's recent megadeal with Facebook-$5.7 billion for a 9.99% stake-plus major follow-on investments from marquee tech titans like Google, Qualcomm, and Intel. The flurry of investments lent the business an eye-popping $65 billion private valuation," Fortune said.

The US publication added that the siblings, along with their younger brother Anant, 25 are "training.to take on their father's empire.

"A major proving ground will be e-commerce. Recently, Akash and Isha helped launch Jio Mart, a venture that aims to challenge Amazon and Flipkart.