The Dynasty Games: How the 3rd Generation of the Ambani League Are Running With the Baton

There’s an adage that John Cadbury’s legacy, before Kraft Foods sneaked in and devoured it, was preserved since the family ensured they were giving birth to enough kids so that they have a "suitable stream" of heirs to keep the business growing. While it may sound to be an urban myth, but this obviously hints at the sense of responsibility and duty that today many family businesses hold close to the heart.

What may seem rather interesting is the fact that all the family-owned companies have one thing in common and that is when they began, it wasn’t because someone out of them just wanted to “do business”. In fact, their company was elicited by the conception of coming up with something disruptive and that too in their own right.

Same rings in true in the case of the line of dynasty businesses in India that have stood the test of time and have treaded latitudes and longitudes.  But here what forms to be the crux of the matter is not what the rights or wrongs they did so as to make their businesses flourish. Such businesses need a certain sort of a person to stay invested in that kind of life and the kind of attention it demands. Ergo, it stands to reason; when a business is bound by blood ties, the generations that follow take up the baton out of a deep-seated sense of accountability and then go on to fill in the shoes of their fathers and forefathers.  The case of the Ambani family is no exception to such attributes.

The tale of Dhirubhai Ambani is nothing short of a rag to riches one. He began his career in 1950s at a Yemeni firm. He then moved to Mumbai in 1958 to start something of his own. Some time passed and he commenced with his textiles business and opened a mill in Naroda industrial area in Ahemdabad. Today, the company consists of more than 85,000 employees and is the provider of approximately 5 percent of India’s Central Government’s total tax revenue. Ambani is credited for building Reliance from scratch to become one of the biggest companies in the private sector.   

But that’s not it. There has been a sea change in the way things have turned out for the family. The infighting between the brothers finally came to a halt and both the brothers hugged and patched with each other with a reunion kind of an event at the 80^th birth anniversary of Dhirubhai Ambani at Chowrad. The entire family was seen dancing, eating and praying together. Albeit, the estranged relationship between the two in terms of business did not seem to loosen up and till today they are tough business rivals.

Cutting to the league of the third generation of inheritance, we have the Mukesh Ambani trio and the Anil Ambani duo, who are completely poles apart. The sons of Anil Ambani are media-shy, like to keep their reach limited when it comes to high social life and mean business. Whereas, the Mukesh Ambani clan are the social butterflies, spotted with stars of the B-Town often, love the attention that comes their way through mainstream media and feed off it and do not seem as involved in the business endeavours.

Anil Ambani has groomed the sons in a fashion the way a tiger teaches his cubs to fetch the catch quite early on in life. They interned with Reliance Group right after they completed their undergraduate courses. Couple of years later and today both are on the board of directors undertaking business like their life depends on it and making it a point that they not only fill the shoes of their father but carry on the legacy of their grandfather.