Dhirubhai Ambani

Dhirubhai was born in a small village in Gujarat, and as a boy he sold snacks to tourists. He worked at a petrol pump in Aden, and came home to Bombay with almost nothing.

From a tiny office with one telephone he started trading yarn and spices, then built giant textile mills, then a huge oil and petrochemical company called Reliance. He also convinced ordinary middle-class Indians to buy shares for the first time — millions of them became shareholders in his company.

Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani (1932–2002) was born in Chorwad, Junagadh district, Gujarat. After working as a clerk for A.

Besse & Co. in Aden, Yemen, he returned to India in 1958 and started Majin — a small trading firm dealing in spices and polyester yarn — in Bombay. He renamed it Reliance Commercial Corporation and, in 1966, opened his first textile mill in Naroda, Ahmedabad, under the 'Vimal' brand.

Reliance went public in 1977 in an IPO that transformed India's equity culture: over 58,000 investors subscribed, and the annual general meetings in Bombay's football stadiums drew tens of thousands of shareholders. Ambani then integrated the business backwards into polyester, PTA, MEG, refining and petrochemicals — the Jamnagar refinery, one of the world's largest, was conceived in his lifetime.

He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 2016 (posthumously). His sons Mukesh and Anil now run the successor companies.