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After three decades of rapid growth, India has the world’s fifth-largest economy, with a gross domestic product (GDP) of $3.55 trillion in 2023. Not surprisingly, there are now many famous Indian entrepreneurs and business people.
In addition to being the world’s largest democracy, India is also the second-most populous country behind China, with a 2023 population of 1.43 billion people. Although many people live in poverty due to India’s high levels of income inequality, the country has maintained a long tradition of entrepreneurship and wealth creation.
Many of those entrepreneurs have created substantial fortunes. Some of the businesspeople on the following list are historical figures, who built their fortunes during the rise of the Indian economy. Others are still running their companies today.
Key Takeaways
- India is a growing emerging market and the world’s largest democracy, with a GDP of $3.55 trillion and a population of 1.43 billion people.
- While the country still has large numbers of people living in extreme poverty, there are also many prominent, wealthy Indian entrepreneurs and businesspeople.
- One top Indian entrepreneur, Dbirubhai Ambani, founded Reliance Industries, India’s largest private company and a member of the Forbes 500.
- Other wealthy Indian entrepreneurs have founded companies in the automotive, IT, steel, textiles, and real estate industries, among others.
- Top women entrepreneurs in India include Falguni Nayar, Radha Vembu, and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, who are all billionaires.
1. Dhirubhai Ambani
Ambani (1932–2002) was an Indian businessman who started out humbly by selling traditional snacks to religious pilgrims. His business soon grew, and he expanded and diversified into industries including telecommunications, power generation, information technology, consumer goods, and logistics.
Today, Reliance Industries is India’s largest private company and is listed on the Fortune 500. Ambani’s son now runs Reliance and is one of India’s wealthiest people; Mukesh Ambani, 67, is worth $117.3 billion, as of September 2024, according to Forbes.
2. Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata
Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata or JRD Tata (1904–1993) was born in Paris to Indian and French parents. He was trained as an aviator in Europe and later became India’s first commercial airline pilot. Working for the family business, TATA group, he set out on his own and built TATA Airlines, which ultimately became the modern Air India.
By the time of JRD Tata’s death, TATA owned nearly 100 different businesses across many industries. Notably, his automobile venture, Tata Motors, produces economical automobiles that nearly all working Indians can afford to own. JRD Tata is descended from Jamsetji Tata who founded the TATA group of companies in the mid-1800s.
3. Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy
Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy, age 78, is an Indian entrepreneur who co-founded IT giant Infosys (INFY) with an initial investment of 10,000 rupees, or about $250.
With a net worth of $5.3 billion, he is often referred to as the father of the Indian IT industry, serving as CEO of Infosys from 1981 until 2002, and then its chair until 2011. As of September 2024, Infosys has a market capitalization of around $96 billion.
4. Shiv Nadar
Shiv Nadar, 79, founded HCL Infosystems in 1976 with an investment of a few thousand dollars, selling calculators and microcomputers. By 2021, HCL earned $10 billion in revenue becoming one of the first tech companies to hit the billion-dollar milestone. HCL has continued to grow, making Nadar a billionaire worth over $39.4 billion, as of September 2024.
5. Lakshmi Niwas Mittal
Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, 74, is an Indian entrepreneur who began his career working for his father’s steel business. He later set out on his own, due to family infighting and created what is now one of the largest steelmakers in the world, ArcelorMittal (MT). As of August 30, 2024, ArcelorMittal has a market capitalization of $16.9 billion. Mittal himself is worth about $15 billion, as of September 2024.
$2,484
The GDP per capita in India, as of 2023. India’s total GDP of $3.55 trillion makes it the fifth-most productive economy worldwide in nominal terms.
6. Ghanshyam Das Birla
Ghanshyam Das Birla (1894-1983) was a well-known Indian businessman who started his first company in the early 1900s operating a cotton and textile mill. By 1919, Birla’s businesses also included significant paper and sugar production. By the time he died, Birla Group was a multi-sector global conglomerate.
His great-grandson Kumar Mangalam Birla, 57, now runs the company and commands a net worth of $23.4 billion, as of September 2024.
7. Dilip Shanghvi
Dilip Shanghvi, 68, started Sun Pharmaceutical in 1983 with a meager 10,000 rupee investment, or approximately $200. As the son of a pharmaceutical distributor, Shanghvi knew what he was doing. Today, through gradual development and a series of acquisitions, that investment has grown to a market cap of $52 billion, as of September 2024, making Sun Pharma India’s largest pharmaceutical company. Shanghvi has a net worth of around $29.7 billion as of September 2024.
8. Azim Premji
Azim Premji, 79, is worth an estimated $12 billion, as of September 2024, and is the former chair of Wipro Industries (WIT), a diversified software and technology company that many have compared to Microsoft. Premji is sometimes referred to as India’s Bill Gates as a result, alongside his informal title as “czar” of the Indian IT industry.
9. Mukesh Jagtiani
Mukesh “Micky” Jagtiani, passed away at age 71, was an Indian-Emirati businessman who had spent most of his life outside of India. While he was educated in Mumbai and Beirut, he moved to London for accounting school, before dropping out. Soon, starting his first company while driving a taxi, his company eventually grew into the retail and real estate giant Landmark, still based out of Dubai. Jagtiani was worth about $5.2 billion when he died.
10. Ardeshir Godrej
Ardeshir Godrej (1868-1936) co-founded the Godrej Group, a diversified conglomerate with interests in real estate, consumer products, security, household appliances, and industrial tools. The company had modest beginnings—Ardeshir and his brother succeeded at locksmithing after failed ventures into hand-fashioned medical devices.
Godrej Group was founded in 1897, and the Godrej companies have revenues of over $1.66 billion as of September 2024. His grandson, Adi Godrej, 82, who runs the company, is worth $4.2 billion, as of September 2024.
Top Female Entrepreneurs In India
Historically, women in India have had fewer opportunities than men to participate in business and found companies due to gender inequality in the country. In the 2024 Gender Gap Index reported by the World Economic Forum, India ranked 126 out of 146 countries for gender equality, a ranking that includes women’s participation in the labor market and access to economic opportunities.
However, in the last decades, large companies led by women entrepreneurs have seen great success in India. While the majority of billionaire businesswomen in India still lead companies that were founded by a family member, there has also been a rise in self-made Indian female billionaires.
Falguni Nayyar
Falguni Nayar began her career as an investment banker and broker, including as managing director at Kotak Mahindra Capital. She went on to found Nykaa, an e-commerce company that sells beauty, personal care, and other wellness products. The initial public offering (IPO) of Nykaa in 2021 raised $700 million with a $13 billion valuation and increased her personal wealth by 963%.
Falguni, who currently serves as Nykaa’s CEO, was awarded Ernest & Young’s EY Start-Up Entrepreneur of the Year in 2019 and Businesswoman of the Year by the Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence. She was named one of Asia’s Power Businesswomen by Forbes Asia in 2019 and Business Person of the Year 2019 by Vogue India. She is currently the 10th wealthiest self-made billionaire woman globally and the wealthiest self-made billionaire woman in India. She is worth $3.5 billion as of August 2024. Nkyaa was named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential Companies of 2022.
Radha Vembu
Radha Vembu is one of the co-founders of Zoho Corporation, a technology company that makes software and other online business tools. She is the product manager of its Zoho Mail division since 2007 and oversees Zoho Workplace, along with being involved in nearly every other division in the company. Zoho is a private company, so it has never had an IPO.
Zoho experienced a revenue increase to more than $1 billion in 2021, increasing Vembu’s private wealth by 127%. As of August 2024, she was worth $3.3 billion.
The Mazumdar-Shaw call
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is the founder of Biocom, a pharmaceutical company that she started in her garage in 1978. Today, Biocom is a global pharmaceutical brand that manufactures generic active pharmaceutical ingredients, which are sold in more than 120 countries.
Mazumdar-Shaw is a global business leader and currently serves as chair of the Biocon board, along with other board memberships in multiple organizations around the world including The Centre for Social and Economic Progress, the France-India Foundation, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She was worth $3.3 billion as of August 2024.
Who Is the Richest Indian?
India’s wealthiest person is Mukesh Ambani, the Chairman of Reliance Industries. Reliance Industries was founded by Ambani’s father, Dirubhai Ambani, and is now India’s biggest private company. Mukesh Ambani is worth $117.3 billion, as of September 2024, according to Forbes.
How Many Indian Billionaires Are There?
There are 200 Indian billionaires in 2024, up from 169 in 2023, according to Forbes. That means that Indians account for about 7% of the 2,781 billionaires worldwide.
Who Are the Most Famous Indians?
Today, the most famous living Indians include president Narendra Modi, Bollywood stars like Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone, and entrepreneurs, like Mukesh Ambani and Shiv Nadar. If you include people of Indian descent, there are also overseas celebrities like Mindy Kaling, Salman Rushdie, Kal Penn, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Rishi Sunak. Among historical figures, one of the most famous Indians in the past was Mohandas Gandhi.
The Bottom Line
India has a long tradition of entrepreneurship with its own distinct flavor. Rather than founding technology firms, many Indian entrepreneurs came from hard-working, humble beginnings and created conglomerates that were passed down as family businesses. Modern Indian entrepreneurs, however, are moving into tech spaces, including software and e-commerce.
India continues to experience economic growth. However, with a population of almost 1.5 billion people and a GDP per capita of just $2,484 per year, it still demonstrates one of the highest rates of income inequality in the world.