Gautam Adani
Gautam Adani is a self-made billionaire and chairman of power-focused Adani Group, which owns Mundra Port. He is the first billionaire from the city of Ahmedabad. According to a latest Hurun Report, a sharp 152 per cent jump in his wealth saw Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani break into the list of 10 richest Indians even as Mukesh Ambani retained the pole position. Adani blazed into the top league riding on the runaway share prices of his companies in recent past, pegging his wealth at Rs 44,000 crore, the report said. His success in the business world is a glaring example of the fact that the vision to build a successful enterprise does not require an MBA from a blue-chip B-School. Gautam S. Adani was born on June 24, 1962 in Ahmedabad where his parents Shantilal and Shantaben Adani, who hail from the town of Tharad in North Gujarat, had settled some years earlier. After completing high school at the Seth C.N. Vidyalaya in Ahmedabad, he enrolled for B.Com at the Gujarat University but dropped out during the second year and relocated to Mumbai at the age of 18, starting his career as a diamond sorter with Mahendra Brothers. Two years later he started his own company for trading in diamonds, and in the early 1980s moved back to Ahmedabad to manage a plastics unit for his elder brother. Soon he started importing PVC, under his own company, Adani Exports, and during the post-liberalization period, it became one of the largest players in the sector. At present Adani Group have interests in edible oil, coal trading/mining, power, oil and gas exploration, export-import of pulses and fruits. Mr. Adani lives in Ahmedabad along with his wife Priti, who is a dentist and head of the Adani Foundation.
