True Grit: The phenomenal growth of the Indian entrepreneurial spirit

From JRD Tata to Dhirubhai Ambani and Sanjeev Bikhchandani, how entrepreneurs helped India through its transition from an agrarian economy to state-controlled industry and on to an era where unicorns have taken the centrestage
Published: Aug 21, 2021
Dhirubhai Ambani

Image by : Dinodia Photos / Getty Images

6/22
  • True Grit: The phenomenal growth of the Indian entrepreneurial spirit
  • Amul
  • Tata Steel
  • JRD Tata
  • Hero Cycles
  • Dhirubhai Ambani
  • Lijjat
  • Har prasad nanda
  • MS Swaminathan
  • Azim Premji
  • Karsanbhai Patel
  • F C Kohli_
  • Kiran Mazumdar Shaw
  • Narayan and Sudha Murthy
  • Anji Reddy
  • Shiv Nadar
  • Sunil Mittal
  • GR Gopinath
  • Sanjeev Bikchandani
  • Flipkart cofounders
  • Meesho cofounders
  • Pharmeasy

Dhirubhai Ambani is the lighthouse example of an entrepreneur, who created an equity cult in Indian stock markets. A dispatch clerk at A Besse & Company, he was sent to manage an oil filling station at Aden, in Yemen, where he roamed the souks to watch merchants trading goods worth millions in global currency. In 1958, he returned to India and set up a textile trading company. The brand’s ‘Only Vimal’ tag line turned chiffon and polyester sarees into style statements.