When Gautam Adani applied to attend a college in Mumbai in the late 1970s, his application was turned down. Instead of going to school, he focused on business, creating an empire worth $220 billion. Four and a half decades later, he received a summons to give a speech to students on Teachers’ Day at the same college.
Mr Adani had moved to Mumbai at the age of 16 and started working as a diamond sorter. Around the same time – in 1977 or 1978 – he applied for admission to the city’s Jai Hind College. “But they rejected him,” said Vikram Nankani, President of the Jai Hind College Alumni Association, as he introduced the Adani Group Chairman before the address.
Mr Adani had applied to Jai Hind College because his elder brother, Vinod, had earlier studied there.
“Fortunately or unfortunately, the college did not accept him and he went on to work full time and pursued an alternative career,” Mr Nankani said, declaring Gautam Adani as a “deemed alumni” since he had applied to join.
After working as a diamond sorter for almost two years, Mr Adani returned to his home state of Gujarat to run a packaging factory managed by a brother.
He never really looked back after he launched his firm in 1998, trading in commodities. Over the next two-and-a-half decades, his companies diversified into ports, mines, infrastructure, power, city gas, renewable energy, cement, real estate, data centres and media.
The infrastructure tycoon, who runs 13 seaports in India and operates seven airports, is the largest private player in power, the biggest renewable energy producer, runs the country’s second-largest cement company, is building expressways and redeveloping Asia’s largest slum, and is described by some as the most aggressive of India’s new generation of entrepreneurs.
Delivering the address ‘Breaking Boundaries: The Power of Passion and Unconventional Paths to Success’, Mr Adani, 62, said he was just 16 when he chose to break his first boundary.
“It had to do with giving up my education and choosing to move to an unknown future in Mumbai. People still ask me, ‘Why did you move to Mumbai? Why did you not complete your education?’ The answer lies in the heart of every young dreamer who sees boundaries not as barriers but as challenges that test his courage.
“I was driven by a need to see if I had the courage to make a life for myself in the most happening city of our country,” he said.
Mumbai was his training ground for business as he learned to sort and trade in diamonds.
“The field of trading makes a good teacher. I learnt very early that an entrepreneur can never be frozen by over-evaluating the choices in front of him. It is Mumbai that taught me ‘To think big, you must first dare to dream beyond your boundaries’,” he said.
In the 1980s, he established a trading organisation for importing polymers to supply to the struggling small-scale industries. “By the time I turned 23, my trading venture was doing well,” he said.
After the 1991 economic liberalisation, he established a global trading house dealing in polymers, metals, textiles, and agri-products. He was just 29 at the time.
“Within two years, we had become the largest global trading house in the country. This is when I understood the combined value of both speed and scale,” he said.
“Thereafter, in 1994, we decided that it was time to go public, and Adani Exports, now known as Adani Enterprises, launched its IPO. The IPO was a strong success and underscored for me the importance of public markets.”
Mr Adani realised that to break the next set of boundaries, he would have to first start by challenging his own status quo and investing in assets to provide a solid foundation.
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Source: NDTV
