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Mukesh Ambani

Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries

B.E. (Chemical Engineering), Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai; MBA studies at Stanford University (left in 1980)

Photo: World Economic Forum from Cologny, Switzerland, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

About

Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, the Mumbai-based conglomerate founded by his father, Dhirubhai Ambani. Born on 19 April 1957 in Aden, he grew up in Mumbai and earned a chemical engineering degree from the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, before enrolling for an MBA at Stanford, which he left in 1980 to work at Reliance. He has been on the Reliance board since 1977. Early in his career he took charge of the Patalganga petrochemical plant, and he went on to drive the company's backward integration from textiles and polyester into petrochemicals, refining and oil and gas exploration. In the late 1990s he led the construction of the Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat, later expanded with a second refinery alongside it into a site that processes about 1.4 million barrels a day. After his father's death in 2002, the family businesses were split between him and his brother Anil. He then took Reliance into organised retail, where Reliance Retail is now India's largest retailer, and into telecom and digital services through Jio, whose 4G and 5G network he built out. Reliance also owns the Mumbai Indians IPL team.

In 2022 he began handing leadership of the newer businesses to his children: Akash Ambani became chairperson of Jio, Isha Ambani took over as chair of Reliance Retail, and Anant Ambani was named to lead the new energy business. In 2020 Reliance raised large investments for Jio Platforms from Facebook, Google, Silver Lake and others. As of 2026, Jio Platforms has regulatory approval for an IPO that could raise up to $3.8 billion. He is a foreign member of the US National Academy of Engineering and sits on several international advisory councils.

Source: en.wikipedia.org

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