Isha, Akash: Learning the ropes

Mumbai, Oct. 11: Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s twin scions Isha and Akash were today appointed as directors on the boards of Reliance Industries’ telecom and retail ventures.

Isha and Akash, 23, were inducted on the boards of Reliance Jio Infocomm and Reliance Retail Ventures, the company said in a statement.

Ambani has three children — Isha, Akash and Anant. Isha and Akash are twins and the youngest sibling is Anant.

Isha, who graduated from Yale with majors in psychology and South Asian studies in 2013, has worked with McKinsey in the US briefly.

Akash, who graduated from Brown University with a major in economics, has worked closely with Ambani family confidant Manoj Modi on RIL’s 4G telecom venture.

The two are joining the board around the same age as their father Mukesh, who was 24 when he joined RIL in 1981. Nita Ambani, wife of Mukesh Ambani, became the first woman to break the glass ceiling at RIL to become a board member in June 2014.

The development came after the Companies Act, 2013, proposed that there should be at least one woman director on the board of a listed company.

Induction of Isha on the boards of Reliance Jio Infocomm and Reliance Retail Ventures will also help meet the same criterion.

Isha and Akash have been spotted at the company’s annual general meetings. Akash possibly made his first appearance when RIL signed an agreement with BP in London in 2011 to sell a 30 per cent stake in 23 oil and gas blocks.

When Isha was 16, she was ranked number two on a list of the world’s youngest billionaire heiresses by Forbes.

The two enter a long list of scions joining family businesses. Interestingly, quite a few of them did a stint at McKinsey or some other consulting firm or bank before joining the family business.

Nandini Piramal, daughter of Swati and Ajay Piramal, worked with McKinsey as a business analyst before joining her family firm in 2006.

Aditya Mittal, CFO of ArcelorMittal and son of Lakshmi Mittal, started out in investment banking with Credit Suisse.

Rishad, Azim Premji’s son, spent a few years at Bain & Co before he joined Wipro.

Holding board berths are Venu Srinivasan’s kids Lakshmi and Sudarshan. They both are directors of TVS Motors and Sundaram Clayton.

While Shashwat, son of Sanjiv Goenka of RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, is on the board of Firstsource Solution, his cousin Anant, son of Harsh Goenka of RPG Enterprises, is the managing director of Ceat Tyres.

Keshav & Divya, son and daughter of late Lalit Suri, are on the board of Bharat Hotels.