Refineries-to-retail conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd, India’s most valued company, is gearing up to welcome its next-gen leadership. Emphasizing the leadership roles of the third generation of the promoter family, Chairman Mukesh Ambani on Monday announced the much awaited succession plan, which held no surprises, at the 45th annual general meeting of the Rs17.57 trillion company.
While Ambani will continue to be a hands-on leader, he stressed the importance of creating robust architecture for tomorrow’s Reliance. “This is to ensure that it remains a united, well-integrated, secure institution even as it develops existing businesses and adds new growth engines,” he said.
As per the succession plan, Ambani’s children Akash and Isha have assumed leadership roles in Jio and Retail, respectively, while Anant has joined the new energy business. “They are part of a young team of leaders and professionals mentored by senior leaders,” Ambani said.
The chairman also announced a series of fresh investment outlays for different businesses and enunciated new strategies. Foremost among these are the proposed foray into the fast-moving consumer goods business.
The chairman said the company plans to spend a total of Rs3.5 lakh crore (about US $43.75 billion) over the next five years. The investment plans include Rs 2,00,000 crore (about US $25 billion) on a rapid rollout of 5G services by Diwali this year, Rs 75,000 crore (about US $9.38 billion) to expand O2C capacities across value chains, and a similar amount on the new energy business, as announced last year, with the possibility of doubling the last spend based on scalability of evolving models.
