The year was 1957 when a boy was born in Aden, Yemen.
That boy is now known to be one of the wealthiest men in the world with a net worth of $60.8 billion.
MUKESH DIRUBHAI AMBANI is the chairman, managing director, and largest shareholder of Reliance Industries Ltd.
That’s just not it to define him.
His company is ranked amongst the Fortune Global 500 companies and India’s most valuable company by market value.
But, those are some of the facts that most of us are aware. Something we are not aware of is his life and how he managed to become such an influential person.
Life Before Becoming a Billionaire
Born on 19th April 1957 and brought up in Yemen, Ambani only lived there for a brief amount of time because his dad decided to move back to India. His dad never cared even little about his grades; he was more inclined towards Ambani’s all-around performance.
He did his schooling in Hill Grange High School at Peddar Road, Mumbai. After that, he received B.E. Degree in Chemical Engineering and later got himself enrolled for an MBA at Stanford University.
The Dawn of Reliance
1981 is marked as the year that started it all.
Mukesh Ambani started helping his dad to run their family business, Reliance Industries Limited.
By this time, the company was expanded enough to start dealing in refining and petrochemicals. Later on, the company started including products and services in retail and telecommunications industries.
As of 2016, Ambani was ranked 38 and has successfully held the title of India’s richest person for the past ten years. In fact, he is the only Indian businessman on Forbes’ list of the world’s most powerful people.
The Career
In 2018, Mukesh Ambani was ranked as the 18th wealthiest person in the world. Surpassing Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba Group, he became Asia’s richest person with a net worth of $44.3 billion in July 2018.
That’s not it; he is in fact wealthiest person outside North America and Europe. What makes things more interesting is the fact that he was appointed as a Director of Bank of America and became the first non-American to be on its board.
The Lavishing life of Mukesh Ambani
In 1985, he married Nita Ambani and has two sons; Anant and Akash and a daughter, Isha. His father attended a dance performance which Nita took part in and decided to arrange a marriage between the two.
His family lives in a private 27-storey building named Antilia in Mumbai. That building was in fact the most expensive residence in the world at the time it was built valued at US$1 billion. Talking about his house, well, it requires a staff of 600 for maintenance, and includes three helipads, a 160 car garage, private movie theatre, fitness centre, and swimming pool. Thing don’t here, the year was 2007 when he decided to gift his wife a $60 million Airbus A319 for her 44th birthday.
Ambani is known to be the “world’s richest sports team owner” after his purchase of the IPL team Mumbai Indians for whopping amount of $111.9 million in 2008.