Mukesh Ambani’s youngest son Anant joins Jio Platforms as director, says 'Reliance meri jaan hai'
Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, has formally joined the Reliance Industries's digital venture Jio Platforms as an additional director. Anant Ambani has been appointed as an additional director on the Jio Platforms board, with effect from 16 March 2020. This is the first time that Anant Ambani has become a part of his family business.
On the other hand, his siblings — twins Akash and Isha Ambani — joined the boards of Reliance Jio Infocomm and Reliance Retail Ventures earlier in 2014 and had also joined the board of Jio Platforms.
RIL's Jio Platforms has been in the news for the past few weeks as it received billions of dollars of investment from Facebook, KKR, Vista and others.
“India should lead the change and Reliance should be at the forefront of that change. Reliance meri jaan hai (Reliance is my life),” Anant, youngest son of Mukesh and Nita Ambani said during his speech at the birth anniversary of his grandfather — RIL founder Dhirubhai Ambani, earlier.
Anant Ambani has joined the board of RIL’s digital and telecom arm at a time when RIL is going heavy on consumer faced business. Interestingly, Akash and Isha had joined the Reliance group about the same age as their father Mukesh, who was 24 when he joined RIL in 1981. Anant is now 25.
Anant Ambani spent most of his life at Jamnagar, Gujarat. He studied at the Dhirubhai Ambani International School and completed his graduation from Brown University in 2017. While Isha had graduated from Yale University with majors in psychology and South Asian studies in 2013. She had worked with global consultancy firm McKinsey in the US for a brief period. Akash graduated from Brown University with a major in economics.
In a span of a few weeks, Jio Platforms has attracted many global investments. These investors include US-based social media platform Facebook, private equity funds Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic and KKR – for a combined holding of 17.12%. Facebook alone has pledged to make investment to the north of Rs 45,000 crore for a 9.99% equity stake in Reliance Jio. It has so far signed deals for investments worth Rs 78,562 crore from these five global investors.
