Although he lacks a politician’s silver tongue — he can be a nervous public speaker, and his

diction can be
halting — he talks more like a father of the nation than a corporate executive. Describing his
goals, he says
they are for India’s benefit as much as they are for his sprawling company, Reliance
Industries.

Reliance is plowing
billions of dollars into energy exploration and is building the world’s largest oil refinery.

Mr. Ambani promises that it will funnel money

from the flourishing cities into the struggling agricultural heartland. He
envisions Reliance, with $39 billion
in revenue, as providing incomes to 12 million to 30 million Indians within the
next five years by buying
from farmers and employing new workers in its stores.

And as Mumbai, Mr. Ambani’s hometown and the commercial and entertainment capital of
India, has
grown ever more populous and ever less livable, he has proposed that Reliance simply build
a new,
improved city across the harbor.

He maintains a low public profile; even those close to him describe him as inscrutable. On
one hand, he is
seen as a man whose heart bleeds for India. He is motivated by “the ability to
change the face of the
country,” said K. V. Kamath, the C.E.O. of ICICI Bank and a longtime financier and
friend of the Ambanis.
“That is the biggest kick anybody would get today — that they could touch the lives of a large
number of
these billion people and make things better for them.”

“They grew up as lotuses from the filth.

It makes them tough, it makes them suspicious, it makes them vindictive at times, and it
makes them come
out in a hurry. They always see life as, ‘Oh God, better not miss an opportunity.’ ”

“Personally, I still have to eat my dal, roti, chaval,” he says, using the Hindi words for lentil
soup, flatbread
and rice. “I just have not developed those tastes.”

His preferences reflect a wider cultural transformation in India, admirers say.

“If you look at his interests,
they’re very rooted in India,” says Nandan M. Nilekani, co-chairman of Infosys
Technologies, a leading
outsourcing company in India. “He’s not trying to impress anyone else. It’s part
of a broader shift in
self-confidence that is happening, where people are no longer looking at
Westernized symbols of having
arrived.”

Emblematic of his ascent is the towering residence he is building on what was once known as
Altamount
Road, one of the most exclusive streets here. Hundreds of feet tall, it will offer several levels
of parking, a
multi-tiered gymnasium, a ballroom, a theater, ample living and guest quarters, and a
helipad on the roof.
(Although the price tag for the residence has drawn estimates as high as $2 billion, a
Reliance spokesman
said it would ultimately cost $50 million to $70 million.)

MANY other Indian business families have been rich for generations, and their scions don
finely cut suits
and flaunt fussy tastes. Ratan Tata cruises down Marine Drive on Sundays in fast cars and
favors Hermès
ties with matching handkerchiefs. Vijay Mallya is said to be trailed in his home by a butler
holding a silver
tray with a cigar and a Scotch. Adi and Parmeshwar Godrej are famous for soirées that
attract Hollywood
stars.
Mr. Ambani comports himself quite differently. Among family
members, he prefers speaking Gujarati to
English, friends say. He may ask colleagues to stop at the
temple with him during business trips to partake
in a ritual Hindu prayer. He loathes Western suits, preferring a
white short-sleeved shirt, black trousers and
black shoes that resemble sneakers cross-bred with office
wingtips.
His idea of entertainment is not ballet but Bollywood; he
watches as many as three films a week at home in a
private theater. “You need some amount of escapism in life,” he says. “Those two or
three hours give you
relief.”

He has been known to

walk out of fancy restaurants in search of dosas, south Indian
crepes sold by the roadside. And he carries
those preferences with him when he travels.
Mr. Ambani and his younger brother, Anil, spent their childhoods
in the down- market Bhuleshwar
neighborhood, in a two-bedroom apartment in a humble building
that Mumbai residents call a “chawl”: a
tenement obscured from major roads by more attractive towers.

Times were tight in his youth, and he

went without an allowance. Friends say, and Mr. Ambani agrees, that growing up as he did
gave him an edge
over many business peers:

Mr. Ambani
says. “The important thing which I’ve really learned is how do you not give up, because you
never succeed in

But his father, who had never finished high school and worried that his children might
grow up too pampered, hired a tutor whose responsibility was to spend
three hours a day taking Mukesh,
and later his siblings, on working- class field trips: riding public
transportation, buying tickets at the rail
station. Once a year, the tutor arranged a visit to a village for
about two weeks.

Years later, when Mr. Ambani enrolled in an M.B.A. program at Stanford, his father clung to
the belief that
real learning came in the trenches, not in academic enclaves like Palo Alto. He summoned
Mr. Ambani home
in 1980, halfway through the two-year program, to take charge of a yarn manufacturing
project.

“I found him an extremely receptive listener who was

learning all the time,” said Mr. Kamath, a lender to the Ambanis at the time.

Working in an Indian village, he won high praise from some of those around him. He slept in
a trailer on site
and juggled an attention to detail with big dreams. “I found him an extremely receptive
listener who was
learning all the time,” said Mr. Kamath, a lender to the Ambanis at the time. “He virtually
camped out there.
It is very unusual for any leader that I have dealt with.”
FRIENDS of Mr. Ambani say the plant’s completion, on schedule, marked his emergence as
his own man in
his father’s burgeoning corporate empire.
In setting up the yarn factory, Mr. Ambani also displayed the first glimmers of his
management style. The
close friend who had spoken on the condition of anonymity compared Mr. Ambani to the
mom-and-pop
traders who populated his Gujarati caste ancestry: “He’s a guy who likes to get his hands
dirty,” he says. “He
is a shopkeeper in many ways. He wants to sit at the till. He wants to see what’s going on.”

“In my life, I’ve only met a few people who are able to think on a staggering scale and take
the risks to match
it,”

As the eldest son in a traditional Indian family, he helped oversee the

company’s diversification into petrochemicals, then energy, then cellphones. His father
made him a board
member at the age of 17 or 18, he says; and because he was involved with Reliance when it
was “just a textile
company,” he says he has always felt that he built it with his father, rather than simply
inheriting it.

And more than that, he gave me the full freedom, the ability to bet the
house. So in 1980, he was saying, ‘Here, take 80 crores of rupees’ ” — about $100 million
then — “ ‘and build
a polyester plant.’ ”

5 of 9 9/26/2008 10:44 AM
His greatest talent, as Ravi Venkatesan, the chairman of Microsoft India, puts
it, is for being “in the clouds
as well as in the details.”
“In my life, I’ve only met a few people who are able to think on a staggering
scale and take the risks to match
it,” Mr. Venkatesan says. “Bill Gates comes to mind.”
As Mr. Ambani grew older, Reliance entered a raft of new businesses, gaining more power
and placing ever
bigger bets on nascent industries. As the eldest son in a traditional Indian family, he helped
oversee the
company’s diversification into petrochemicals, then energy, then cellphones. His father
made him a board
member at the age of 17 or 18, he says; and because he was involved with Reliance when it
was “just a textile
company,” he says he has always felt that he built it with his father, rather than simply
inheriting it.
“My big advantage was to have my father accept me as first-generation,” he says. “He treated
me like a
partner, saying, ‘O.K., let’s go do this.’ And more than that, he gave me the full
freedom, the ability to bet the
house. So in 1980, he was saying, ‘Here, take 80 crores of rupees’ ” — about
$100 million then — “ ‘and build
a polyester plant.’ ”
Over the years, Reliance morphed from a small family business into a publicly traded
empire, adopting new
standards of corporate governance, publishing glossy annual reports and signing up
shareholders across the
nation. By the time the elder Mr. Ambani died, in 2002, he had become a legend, mourned
by throngs of
ordinary Indians winding through Mumbai’s streets. The socialist, Gandhian regime he
challenged had
yielded, beginning in the 1990s, to the kind of bare-knuckles capitalism he had zealously
advocated.
Arun Shourie, a politician and former cabinet minister who in his younger days
as a journalist had publicly
crusaded against Reliance and what he considered to be its heavy-handed
business practices, acknowledged
a year after the elder Mr. Ambani’s death that he had made a “180-degree turn”
in his view of the company.
“They set up world-class companies and facilities in spite of those regulations,”
he said in a speech in 2003.
“By exceeding the limits and restrictions, they created the case for scrapping
those regulations. They made a
case for reforms.”
IN 2004, two years after the elder Mr. Ambani died, his sons began battling each other for
control of
Reliance. Their mother, Kokilaben, also a major shareholder, ended the squabble in 2005 by
giving Anil
control of Reliance’s newer service businesses like telecommunications, electric power and
banking. Mukesh
got the portfolio of industrial businesses. Each half now operates independently.
Today, both brothers are respected chief executives, though they are said by friends to speak
to each other
rarely, if ever. Neither of the brothers publicly discusses the relationship.
Anil Ambani, who friends say struggled to be taken seriously as Mr. Ambani’s younger
brother, has emerged
on his own as a business leader, taking the cellphone business, in particular, to new heights.
But it is his
(older brother, with his gargantuan, quasi-public projects in energy, retailing
and urban renewal, who has
become the most visible symbol of India’s visceral transformation.)
Ticking off one Indian problem at a time, Mr. Ambani has proposed for each a Reliance
solution.
While India was once largely self-sufficient in oil and gas, a swelling middle
class is burning ever more
Meet Mukesh Ambani - India’s Richest Man - Biography - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/business/worldbusiness/15ambani.h...
6 of 9 9/26/2008 10:44 AM
energy, forcing India to become an energy importer and straining the country’s
development. So he is
building a world-class oil refining and petrochemical complex in Jamnagar, in
the western state of Gujarat.
The $6 billion facility can already process 660,000 barrels a day, and it has
helped India to become
self-sufficient in producing finished gasoline — though it still must import
crude oil. It is one of the most
profitable refineries in the world, and Mr. Ambani plans to double its capacity.
(However these challenges are resolved, some businessmen say Mr. Ambani
has already established himself
as India’s great transformer,)

“When we talk about Rockefeller and Carnegie and all these guys, they really
each changed one industry,”
Said( Mr. Nilekani, the Infosys co-chairman. “But if you look at what he’s doing,
he’s really changing three or
four industries.”)

To be sure, such practices are hardly uncommon in India. But people in the Indian business
scene say few
companies match Reliance’s record of having laws changed in
its favor and of protecting itself from
extensive outside scrutiny.

(Mr. Ambani’s vision is to turn India’s weakness on its head. If manufacturing

remains small-scale and
fragmented, let it stay that way, he says. “The next big thing is how do you
create manufacturing with
decentralized employment,” he says. “The Chinese have got very disciplined
top-down systems. We have our
bottom-up creative systems.”)

He mentions products like handmade leather sandals from the Sugar Belt a few hours south
of Mumbai,
tie-dyed Bandhani saris from Gujarat, artisanal pottery, clothes, jewelry and the like. These
wares would be
produced in rural areas, sometimes in a villager’s own home. Reliance would forgo
manufacturing them and
instead teach residents what to make, gather the wares from disparate villages, oversee
quality and market
and distribute the products.

How do you make sure that you create systems that empower everybody and bring them
to their true potential?
Ambani said dharma, moksha and karma (righteousness, salvation and
duty) were important goals for individuals and that needed to be
carried forward to the issue of leadership as well

e said (India must regain its leadership in science, technology and

innovation, especially in the knowledge-driven global economy of
today)

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/business/knowledge-and-human-values-
essential-mukesh-ambani_10027424.html

Still, he has managed to come out unscathed because, he says, of his single-minded focus on
pursuing growth and consolidation. "Over the years, Reliance has developed the main
competency of building businesses from scratch, of building businesses which it did not know
anything about ... the way we do it is really grow, consolidate, put a separate team to again
grow and the cycle continues," he said in an interview.

("India does not need a tie-wearing, golf-playing leader," he said recently in comments on his
management style. "You don't need leaders who say we will motivate you, but leaders - and by
leaders I am not talking of chief executive officers but leaders at all levels - who can drive your
company as strong knowledge-based achievers.")

Mukesh Ambani's leadership style is not that of an attention-seeker. To many he is shy, almost a
recluse, a strict vegetarian who abstains from drinking alcohol

Ambani realized that "to remain competitive in the global arena", Reliance Industries would have to
further "leverage economies of scale to reduce costs".

Thus he initiated a fresh course of backward integration that went deeper, from textiles and
polyester fibers to petrochemicals and oil. During this process, Ambani led the creation of 51
new, world-class manufacturing facilities involving diverse technologies that raised Reliance's
manufacturing capacities many times.

Simultaneously, he embarked on an acquisition spree to consolidate Reliance's position in the

petrochemical industry. He started by acquiring ailing local petrochemicals company IPCL Ltd
in 2002, followed by a similar company, Nocil, in 2004. Within months of these two takeovers,
Ambani claimed that he was able to turn around these companies "impressively" through
growth caused by "geographical expansion, market consolidation, acquisitions and green-
field investments".

Ambani is "a manager with the rare ability of being able to think both wide and deep, to see
both the big picture and keep track of the minuscule details in which lie profits".
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IK01Df01.html

This is where investing in talent works. We had different sets of competencies in Reliance. If it meant
getting licences to import something quickly to reduce the cycle time or to get steel from Steel
Authority -- there were people with relevant competencies handling those things to ensure that the
project is completed in time.

We were clear that we had to be internationally competitive and were passionate about building
competencies that were the best in the world even when the tariffs were very high. It was an
obsession with me to beat the Taiwanese and the Koreans who dominated the polyester business in
the '70s

So, when the deregulation came, we were ready. By the middle of '95, we were producing 1 million
tonnes. A spring was released. Tariffs also fell sharply from 150% to 30% and later to 10%. We
wanted to be internationally competitive even when the tariffs were 300%, but being based in India
became a competitive advantage when the tariff level fell to 30%.

You see, all the right things are written in books and research papers. The trick is to ensure
that there is no gap between what is written in the books and your vision; from what is
happening on the shopfloor and what is going on in the marketplace. That is execution. That is
what makes the difference.

We were sitting right in this room and my father said( 'now it is your call, what you would like
to do.' I said, 'we must use the competencies and cash flows to make a difference to millions
of Indians'.)

http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/jan/18inter.htm

http://www.allbusiness.com/human-resources/employee-development-
leadership/300406-1.html

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xavmwh_mukesh-ambani-leadership-lessons-
on_webcam#from=embed

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6773/is_2_7/ai_n28522869/pg_5/?
tag=content;col1

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-126933674.html

Aiming to set an example of moderation in executive salaries, Reliance Industries chief

Mukesh Ambani has decided to lower his pay package by nearly two-thirds to Rs. 15 crore
for 2008-09,

http://www.thehindu.com/business/article34682.ece

Mukesh Ambani, who heads India’s most valuable company Reliance Industries, has been
ranked among top five best performing CEOs in the world by the prestigious Harvard
Business Review.
Mr. Ambani, the only Indian to feature among top 50 CEOs, is in the same league as Steve
Jobs of Apple, Yun Jong—Yong of Samsung Electronics, Russian energy firm Gazprom’s
Alexey Miller and John Chambers of Cisco Systems.

He is also ranked number two among the top 10 emerging market CEOs with Miller at the
top

http://www.thehindu.com/business/article66843.ece

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Text-of-Mukeshs-e-
mail-message/articleshow/1147539.cms