Corporate Grapevine     

Published: Jan 15, 2023
Updated: Jan 15, 2023

Ambani plans ahead for children’s roles

With his three children – sons Akash and Anant and married daughter Isha — given specific businesses to run, one of the richest men in the world, Mukesh Ambani, probably heaved a sigh of relief when NY 2023 dawned on Sunday, January 1. In fact, at the last annual general meeting of RIL, he had given the clearest hint of the succession road map and had carved out distinct roles for each of his three children in his $ 220 billion retail-to- refining and textiles-to-telecom conglomerate.

According to Mr Ambani’s succession road map, Akash will look after the Jio telecom business, Isha will oversee the retail arm and Anant will steer the new energy-green hydrogen business. Mr Ambani will maintain his position as chairman and managing director of the company, and for the time being will focus on managing the conglomerate’s mainstay biz – oil, gas and petroleum. He is reported to have urged the senior management team of the company to work in tandem with his children. His thinking apparently is that if and when the businesses are divided, his three children can lead their separate companies without any controversy or friction.

It seems Mr Ambani would like to make sure that his children live in harmony and without any mutual acrimony in order to avoid repeating history – that is, the acrimonious inheritance battle he had to wage with his younger brother Anil two decades ago after their father Dhirubhai, one of India’s greatest entrepreneurs, died without leaving a will.

A far-sighted Mukesh Ambani will certainly take a lesson from his past experience to ensure that there is no fight in his own family over the succession issue, which he has virtually settled at a time when he is hale and hearty. Besides, he took the ‘revolutionary’ step of treating his married daughter on a par with his sons. Isha’s being treated as an equal to her brothers is a clear shift from the ‘son-focused’ tradition still prevalent in many Indian industrial families. Mukesh’s vision in this regard is sure to boost the trend of women’s empowerment in the world of business and industry.