Mumbai
Reliance Industries Ltd on Monday appointed the three children of Chairman Mukesh Ambani as board directors at the oil-to-telecoms conglomerate, as the billionaire prepares to eventually hand over the reins.
Ambani, Asia’s richest person, has previously said his children Isha, Akash and Anant would have significant roles in the business and that Reliance was in the process of effecting a momentous leadership transition. Mukesh Ambani was re-appointed as chairman of the company for another five years in July.
With a market value of more than $200 billion, Ambani’s business empire spans telecoms, retail, oil and gas and new energy.
Mukesh’s father Dhirubhai Ambani, a well-known industrialist, died without a will, sparking a long-running and public feud for control of assets between Mukesh and his younger brother Anil.
Akash Ambani, who attended Brown University, was part of a team that brokered a $5.7 billion investment in 2020 by Meta Platforms in Jio Platforms, a Reliance unit. He is already the chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, the telecom arm of Reliance.
Akash’s twin sister Isha is driving the expansion of Reliance Retail into new categories and geographies, and is already a director on the boards of the retail unit, Reliance Retail Ventures, which houses the conglomerate’s bets in India’s brick-and-mortar and e-commerce industries.
The youngest of the siblings, Anant, is a director at Reliance’s new energy business, retail unit as well as Jio platforms and its energy, and oil and chemical units. The appointments are to be finalised after approval from shareholders.
