Mukesh Ambani resigned, Akash Ambani made chairman

Mukesh Ambani has resigned from the board of his group’s telecom arm, Reliance Jio and handed over the reins of the company to elder son Akash, a step seen as succession planning by the 65-year old billionaire.

In a stock exchange filing, Reliance Jio Infocomm said the company’s board at a meeting on June 27, “approved the appointment of Akash Mukesh Ambani, non-executive director, as chairman of the board of directors of the company.” This comes after his father resigned with effect from close of working hours on June 27, it said.

In 2021, Ambani said that his kids were taking more responsibilities as part of the leadership shift. He said he could see in his children the same spark and potential of his father Dhirubhai Ambani Reliance’s founder for contributing to the country’s growth.

Mukesh Ambani son Akash Ambani, who has graduated from Brown University with a major in Economics, has been closely involved with the disruptive and inclusive growth path charted by the digital services and consumer retail propositions of Reliance group and is now leading the creation of the ‘convergence dividend’ for over 500 million consumers.

Akash has been closely involved with the creation of the digital ecosystem around Jio’s 4G proposition. He was closely involved with a team of engineers in inventing and launching an India-specs focussed Jiophone in 2017 which became quite a revolutionary device to take many people out of 2G to 4G.

Also Read: New labour law: Four days’ work a week, 12 hour work every day from next month

He personally led the key acquisitions made by Jio in the digital space in the last few years and has also been keenly involved with development of new technologies and capabilities including AI-ML and blockchain.

Akash was integrally involved in the trailblazing global investments by tech majors and investors in 2020, which in many ways catapulted Jio onto the global investor map.