Reliance Group's Mukesh Ambani got tongues wagging with a mention of leadership change at the helm of his multi-billion conglomerate, stating that fresh blood needs to come into the organisation. Ambani has three children: Akash, Isha, and Anant. As The Indian Express reported, Isha and Akash are already on the board of Reliance Jio, and Anant is a director of Reliance New Energy Solar and Reliance New Solar Energy.
Speaking at the Reliance Family Day, which marks the birth anniversary of the group's founder Dhirubhai Ambani, Mukesh Ambani spoke about forays into the clean and green energy sector as well as retail and telecom business reaching unprecedented heights. "Achieving big dreams and impossible-looking goals is all about getting the right people and the right leadership. Reliance is now in the process of effecting a momentous leadership transition... from seniors belonging to my generation to the next generation of young leaders," he said. And this process, he would like "to be accelerated". The speech was reported by Ambani-owned news outlet News18.com.
"All seniors, myself included, should now yield to the highly competent, extremely committed, and incredibly promising young leadership talent at Reliance," Ambani said. "We should guide them, enable them, encourage them and empower them... and sit back and applaud as they perform better than us."
Reliance now has three verticals: energy business comprising of oil refineries at Jamnagar in Gujarat, petrochemicals plants and new energy factories, the retail business made up of physical stores and online e-commerce unit in JioMart, and telecom and digital business housed in Jio.
Ambani said an organisational culture must be built at Reliance that outlasts its leaders. "I have no doubt that Akash, Isha and Anant as the next-gen leaders will lead Reliance to even greater heights."
RIL is fasttracking Ambani’s ambitions in the renewable energy space. At the Reliance Industries’ annual shareholders meeting on June 24, 2021, Mukesh Ambani announced a Rs 75,000 crore investment in a massive push into new energy business—Rs 60,000 crore towards setting up four giga factories, and Rs 15,000 crore in value chain, partnerships and future technologies. RIL made fortunes from petrochemicals and oil refining, but has now rightly identified that bigger opportunities lie in renewable energy. On the one hand, it is acquiring REC Solar Holdings, a solar panel manufacturer, from China National Bluestar Group, and on the other, its picking up a 40 per cent stake in Shapoorji Pallonji Group’s Sterling & Wilson Solar.
-Inputs from agencies
