Items17The creator’s order
  1. 1Radhakishan DamaniRadhakishan DamaniBorn 12 Jul 1955Retail, Mumbai. Damani, a former stock trader, opened the first DMart in Powai in 2002 and built it slowly around one discipline: own the store buildings rather than rent them, keep the range tight and price everyday groceries and household goods below rivals. Low occupancy costs let DMart stay…0
  2. 2Karsanbhai PatelKarsanbhai PatelHousehold goods, Gujarat. Patel, a government chemist, began making detergent powder at home in 1969 and selling it door to door on his bicycle around Ahmedabad at a fraction of the price of Hindustan Lever's Surf. Nirma opened the washing powder market to households that had used bar soap, and…0
  3. 3Harsh MariwalaHarsh MariwalaConsumer goods, Mumbai. Mariwala spun Marico out of his family's Bombay Oil Industries in 1990 and turned Parachute coconut oil and Saffola cooking oil into national brands. A famous detail: he switched Parachute from tins to plastic bottles, and had to design a bottle that rats in village shops…0
  4. 4Dilip ShanghviDilip ShanghviBorn 1 Oct 1955Pharmaceuticals, Gujarat and Mumbai. Shanghvi founded Sun Pharma in 1983 with a small loan and five psychiatric medicines made in Vapi, deliberately choosing chronic-therapy niches that bigger firms neglected. He then grew by buying struggling companies and turning them round, culminating in the…0
  5. 5Yusuf HamiedYusuf HamiedBorn 25 Jul 1936Pharmaceuticals, Mumbai. Hamied led Cipla, the generic drug maker his father founded in 1935, and in 2001 offered a triple-combination HIV treatment to Médecins Sans Frontières for about a dollar a day, a fraction of the branded price. The offer helped transform access to antiretrovirals across…0i
  6. 6Kiran Mazumdar-ShawKiran Mazumdar-ShawBorn 23 Mar 1953Biotechnology, Bengaluru. Mazumdar-Shaw, a trained brewer who could not find brewing work in India as a woman, founded Biocon in a garage in 1978 to make industrial enzymes. She moved it into insulin, statins and later biosimilars, cheaper versions of biological drugs, building one of India's first…0i
  7. 7Devi ShettyDevi ShettyBorn 8 May 1953Healthcare, Bengaluru. Shetty, a cardiac surgeon, founded Narayana Hrudayalaya in 2000, now Narayana Health, to bring the price of heart surgery within reach of ordinary Indian families. Its method borrows from manufacturing: high volumes, surgeons specialising in particular operations, careful…0i
  8. 8Prathap C. ReddyPrathap C. ReddyBorn 5 Feb 1933Healthcare, Chennai. Reddy, a cardiologist who returned from the United States, opened the first Apollo Hospital in Chennai in 1983, India's first corporate hospital, after watching a patient die because he could not afford to travel abroad for surgery. Apollo grew into a national network of…0i
  9. 9Uday KotakUday KotakBorn 15 Mar 1959Banking, Mumbai. Kotak started a bill-discounting business in 1985 with family money and a small office, grew it into a finance company and in 2003 won one of the few new banking licences, turning it into Kotak Mahindra Bank. He was known for caution, keeping capital high and avoiding the bad-loan…0
  10. 10Aditya PuriAditya PuriBanking, Mumbai. Puri was the founding managing director of HDFC Bank from 1994 to 2020, a professional manager rather than an owner. Over 26 years he built it from a new private bank into India's most valuable lender, with a reputation for steady, low-drama growth and tight credit control. His…0i