Savitri Jindal, the chairperson of OP Jindal Group, has added a crown on her feather, after adding $12 billion to her fortune in just two years.
She never went to college and only took over her husband’s business only after he passed away in 2005. Yet, Savitri Jindal, the chairperson of OP Jindal Group, has added a crown on her feather on holding the position of the the richest woman in India, after adding $12 billion to her fortune in just two years. With a net worth of $18 billion, Savitri Jindal is the only woman in the Forbes India’s Richest list, standing at the seventh position in 2021. She also ranks 91st on the Forbes Billionaires’ List.
Savitri Jindal saw her wealth triple for more than three times in the last two years from around $4.8 billion in 2020, to $17.7 billion in 2022. In 2019 to 2020, Jindal’s fortune took a hit to dip by 50 per cent over the two years. Her net worth dropped from $8.8 billion in 2018 to $5.9 billion in 2019 and $4.8 in 2020. But over the past two years, Savitri Jindal made a stunning comeback with her leadership in the steel giant.
The business magnate has an exceptional story to tell to the world. She never was able to go to a college, but did not let her education block her way to pave her company’s success. Under the leadership of the matriarch of the Jindal family, the OP Jindal Group saw its revenue grow by four times. And this was done in just a few years, after her husband, Om Prakash Jindal passed away in a helicopter crash in 2005.
Om Prakash Jindal died when she was 55-years-old. From then on, Savitri Jindal took over every responsibility at the business that her husband had, not caring about her age, which was for most others a time to retire and put their feet up. This was a 360-degree change for the OP Jindal Group Chairperson, who was a mother and a wife, famously remembered for saying that women of her family did not venture out. “We remain in charge of the house while the men take care of everything outside,” she said in an interview with Forbes.
But OP Jindal’s death was the turning point for Savitri, who then not only ventured out of the house, but also became the richest woman in her country. In India’s richest woman list by Forbes, Kiran Mazumdar and Crishna Godrej follow her at the second and third positions respectively.
The mother of nine children, Savitri Jindal has four sons with OP Jindal — Prithviraj, Sajjan, Ratan and Naveen Jindal. After her husband’s death, the group’s companies were divided among the four sons, with Sajjan Jindal taking over the biggest assets, including JSW Steel.
Born in Assam’s Tinsukia in 1950, Savitri Jindal also boasts of a career in politics, apart from business. OP Jindal was a minister in the Haryana Government and a member of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha from the Hisar constituency, and after his death Savitri Jindal was elected to the Haryana Vidhan Sabha from Hisar constituency in 2005. She is now a member of the Indian National Congress.
