Akash Ambani, chairman of India’s largest telecom company Reliance Jio, has been named in the TIME100 Next, TIME magazine’s list of the world’s rising stars. The 30-year-old son of Reliance Industries CMD Mukesh Ambani is the only Indian to make it to the list. Akash Ambani was promoted as the chairman of Jio in June.
TIME100 Next highlights 100 emerging leaders who are shaping the future of business, politics, health, entertainment, activism, sports, science and more.
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“The scion of Indian industrialist royalty, Akash Ambani was always expected to rise in business. But he has been putting in hard work,” TIME said.
Akash Ambani, who is the elder son of billionaire Mukesh Ambani, was promoted in June to chairman of Jio, India’s largest telecom company with over 426 million subscribers. He had joined Jio’s board of directors in 2014. He has since played a key role in landing multi-billion-dollar investments from Google and Facebook. “If he handles Jio well, he may be given a crack at larger chunks of the family’s conglomerate,” TIME added.
In the TIME100 Next, there is, however, an Indian-born American business leader, Amrapali Gan. Amrapali Gan was appointed as CEO of OnlyFans, a content creators’ site, used primarily by sex workers who produce pornography, which she joined in September 2020 as chief marketing and communications officer.
The list features the likes of American singer SZA, actress Sydney Sweeney, basketball player Ja Morant, Spanish tennis player Carlos Alcaraz, actor and television personality Keke Palmer, and environment activist Farwiza Farhan.
Akash Ambani’s Big Role In Reliance
Akash has been closely involved with the disruptive and inclusive growth path charted by the digital services and consumer retail propositions of Reliance group. He is now leading the creation of the ‘convergence dividend’ for over 500 million consumers, digitally and with high-inclusivity across geographies and income levels.
He has been closely involved with the creation of the digital ecosystem around Jio’s 4G proposition. He was closely involved with a team of engineers in inventing and launching an India-specs focussed Jiophone in 2017 that became quite a revolutionary device to take many people out of 2G to 4G.
Akash was integrally involved in the trailblazing global investments by tech majors and investors in 2020, which in many ways catapulted Jio onto the global investor map.
Speaking at RIL’s 45th AGM last month, Akash Ambani, talking about Jio’s future plans on 5G rollout, said, “We plan to increase the Jio 5G footprint month after month. By December 2023, which is less than 18 months from today, we will deliver Jio 5G to every town, every taluka, and every tehsil of our country.”
He also announced ultra-high-speed fixed-broadband. “Since you get fiber-like speeds over the air without any wires, we are calling it JioAirFiber. With JioAirFiber, it will be really easy to quickly connect your home or ofce to gigabit-speed internet.”
During the June 2022 quarter, Reliance Jio Infocomm, a subsidiary of Jio Platforms, reported a year-on-year growth of 23.8 per cent in its standalone net profit at Rs 4,335 crore, compared with Rs 3,501 crore achieved a year ago.
On a sequential basis, the profit has grown 3.9 per cent from Rs 4,173 crore recorded in the January–March 2022 quarter. Jio Platforms is the digital unit of Reliance Industries.
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