OB Cover Story: India’s Biggest Family Conglomerates are Handing Over the Reins. Can Their Scions Rewrite the Legacy?

Many, many moons ago Alfred Tennyson, an English poet, had said, “The old order changeth, yielding place to new.” This natural law is being reflected in India Inc. Not cataclysmic corporate coups, but a slow ushering in of a new crop of leaders from the wings to the centre stage. The past few years have seen a new generation being groomed and handed over the reins of various conglomerates.

India’s rise has been nothing short of extraordinary. In just over three decades, the country has rewritten its economic script—from the brink of bankruptcy in 1991 to becoming the world’s fourth-largest economy in 2024. This metamorphosis was powered not by state command but by private ambition.

Passing the Baton

The transformation is visible on the country’s stock exchange. The combined market capitalisation of Nifty 50 companies has surged from just ₹13.5 lakh crore in the mid-2000s to about ₹201.8 lakh crore today, growing at an estimated compound annual growth rate of 14.9%, according to Sriram BKR, product head–distribution at Geojit Investments, a retail financial-services company.

The top half-a-dozen of these companies are together worth over twice the GDP of Pakistan—roughly $400bn. That scale was once the preserve of US giants alone.

And now, a generational shift is underway.

India’s largest business houses—Reliance Industries, TVS, Piramal, JSW Group, RPSG Group, Aditya Birla Group and others—are passing the baton. Their scions are no longer on the sidelines; they are shaping decisions, steering strategy and stepping into power.

As India works towards achieving developed-nation status, the shift of power within these families will play a crucial role with an estimated 85% of India’s incorporated companies being family-owned. In a 2024 report McKinsey, a consultancy, noted that family-run businesses are at the core of India’s economic landscape, contributing an estimated 75% of the GDP, a figure expected to rise to 80-85% by 2047.

Challenges Galore

Not all of these businesses are going to see a generational transition. Many scions today want to chart out their own path by starting up afresh or even pursuing passions beyond business. Mohandas Pai, a veteran India Inc executive, says that’s a good thing as everyone is not cut out to deal with the heat and dust of marshalling a large business.

“Every heir is going to be compared to their parents’ and grandparents’ achievements. Running a big business is a 24/7 job with a lot of complexity and the best way to preserve the legacy might be by employing professional managers like it is done in the US,” he says.

Pai goes on to add that the scions can always be a part of the board and retain their shareholding. However, they may not be best equipped to oversee day-to-day operations.

“Also, why would the best managers come and work at the company if they know that they will always play second fiddle?” he asks.

While many scions of India Inc are giving up the reins, a handful of young guns are choosing to remain in the driver’s seat. Over the next few pages, we bring you their stories and talk about their challenges.

Each profile in this special edition explores not just the business strategies of the next generation, but their ambitions and influences. Some, like Parth Jindal of the Mumbai-based JSW Group, are trying to recreate the scale and impact of legacy businesses in entirely new sectors.

Others, like Shashwat Goenka of the Kolkata-based RPSG Group, are pivoting traditional groups toward consumer-first, tech-enabled growth. At Bengaluru-based Kirloskar Systems, Manasi Tata is tasked with steering group companies such as Toyota Kirloskar Motor through the challenges of adapting to electric mobility and a fast-evolving manufacturing landscape.

And in the Ahmedabad-headquartered Adani group, a new generation of leaders, Karan, Jeet, Pranav and Sagar Adani, are being thrust into high-stakes roles amid global scrutiny, rising capex and questions of governance.

Meanwhile, at Reliance Industries, succession is unfolding gradually, with Akash, Isha and Anant Ambani beginning to take on defined roles across telecom, retail and energy sectors.

They inherit scale but must earn stature.

Grabbing the Opportunities

As AI reshapes the foundations of global business, India’s next-generation leaders face a defining test. The age of contract-led capitalism, where staying close to the state could shield inefficiency, is on the wane.

If India is to graduate from aspiration to developed-nation status, its conglomerates must look outward, not upward. That means betting on innovation, capturing global market share and curbing the chronic drain of dollars, because in a volatile world, India remains just one West Asia flashpoint away from financial stress. The burden is generational, but so is the opportunity.

What makes this moment important is not just the scale of transition, but the complexity of the world this next generation is inheriting. Their parents built or expanded businesses during the liberalisation era when markets were just opening up, capital was scarce and competition was limited.

Today, the game is entirely different. The successors face a different reality shaped by AI, sustainability pressures, geo-political uncertainties and evolving consumer expectations.

“This is one of the most broad-based generational changes we’ve seen across Indian business groups. And it’s happening at a very challenging time. We are in one of the most testing phases in terms of business environment and it’s not likely to ease up. The turbulence may persist or even intensify. It could be economic, technological, political or social in nature or a combination,” says Kavil Ramachandran, professor of entrepreneurship (practice), Indian School of Business.

Next-Gen Leaders

The signs of a generational shift have been visible for some time. In 2023, Mukesh Ambani formally inducted his three children onto Reliance Industries’ (RIL’s) board, and each has been tasked with handling defined verticals. Retail for Isha, telecom for Akash, green energy for Anant. At the annual general meeting Ambani spoke not of legacy, but of leadership, saying, “I see the flame of Dhirubhai shine in all of them.”

As Mukesh contemplates a succession in his branch of the family, he wants to mitigate the chaos that unfolded two decades earlier when his father passed away without leaving behind a will. The business can’t risk another fissure, especially now. It would endanger his vision for the conglomerate: RIL becoming one of the world’s 30 most-valuable companies by metamorphosing into a deep-tech giant.

At JSW Group, Parth Jindal is emerging as the architect of the next chapter. While JSW Steel remains the bedrock of the group’s profits, he is making deliberate moves into consumer-facing businesses. From JSW Paints, which recently acquired a majority stake in AkzoNobel India, to a joint venture with MG Motor India in the electric-vehicle (EV) space and plans to launch its own EV brand, Parth is racing to build the “next JSW Steel”. All this amid global decarbonisation mandates, geopolitical volatility and rapid changes in technology.

Shashwat Goenka at RPSG is navigating a different set of complexities. While the group’s power and carbon black businesses offer stable business to business cash flows, he is tasked with building the consumer-facing portfolio: from fast-moving consumer goods brands to retail. But execution remains fraught amid intense competition from giants like Hindustan Unilever and ITC, e-commerce majors and very agile start-ups. With a clear aim of growing the legacy ‘significantly’, Shashwat relies on data for decision making and believes that anyone who is not working with AI, will become irrelevant.

Rewriting Legacy

At Kirloskar Systems, Manasi Tata, one of the few women at the helm of a legacy industrial group, stepped into a leadership role at Toyota Kirloskar Motor after the sudden loss of her father, Vikram Kirloskar, in late 2022. Unlike many of her peers who had time to prepare, her transition was sudden and deeply personal. Today, she is focused on shaping the future of mobility and manufacturing, sectors that are facing upheavals from electrification, AI and supply chain disruptions.

At the Adani group, succession is unfolding across multiple businesses simultaneously. Karan, Jeet, Pranav and Sagar Adani have taken on operational roles in infrastructure, green energy and digital, amid a period of intense capital expenditure, public scrutiny and evolving investor expectations. Their challenge isn’t just scale, it is also trust, transparency and long-term resilience.

“The next generation must be prepared to understand and evaluate this environment dynamically...The learning curve is steep and time is compressed. They must undergo accelerated learning. High-quality mentoring and coaching will be critical in making them truly capable leaders. And I do see this happening,” says Ramachandran.

As this new order takes shape, one thing is certain: the scions of India Inc will be measured not by the weight of their last name but by their ability to rewrite its legacy, and India’s growth story will no longer be written solely by those who built its industrial past but by those who will lead its future.