Esteemed faculty, honoured guests, and my dear students, let me start by wishing all teachers present here a very happy Teacher’s Day!
It’s a great honour to address all of you at the Jai Hind College. This institution, born from the ashes of India’s partition, is a great example of the resilience of the human spirit. I find it fascinating that, 75 years ago, two visionary professors from the DJ Sind College in Karachi laid the foundation for this institution in two tiny rooms.
Despite the immense challenges and human displacement happening during the partition of our country, they dreamed of a future where the force of education could heal and unite. I, therefore, stand here today, humbled and thankful to have been invited by Shri Vikram Nankani to share my experiences from this historic platform.
Just as the Jai Hind College was built on the principle of breaking boundaries and creating new possibilities, the theme of my talk today will focus on some of my own inspirations that allowed me to break my boundaries. And over the next 40 minutes, as I share my journey of entrepreneurship, I hope the stories will leave you with some learnings.
My dear friends, we all need role models in our lives. Imagine a young boy faced with a choice between the expectations of his surroundings and an inner calling. This narrative is not restricted to any single person but is a theme we have seen happen all across history.
Consider the early titans of the US industry such as John D Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt or Andrew Carnegie, who built the infrastructure that shaped the future of the United States, or our own visionary leaders like JRD Tata, GD Birla, and Dhirubhai Ambani, who played invaluable roles in transforming India’s economic landscape.
These leaders did more than just build businesses. They established legacies. Their journeys were filled with challenges and criticism, yet their guts to tackle the impossible transformed ordinary ambition into extraordinary legacies. They showed that the true measure of a leader is not in their titles but in the legacies they leave behind.
And as I stand before you today, I would like to emphasise a few points that often go unspoken. It is easy to criticise the present, but history has a way of highlighting the profound contributions of those who dared to break boundaries. It is said that the wisdom of our saints and prophets is only recognised long after their time. Likewise, I believe that the real impact of the achievements of visionaries is also often realised not during their lifetimes but only after they are gone.
My dear friends, I was just 16 years old when I chose to break my 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.
Mumbai is more than just a city for me. It was my training ground for business. It is here that I learned to sort and trade diamonds. The field of trading makes a good teacher. I learnt very early that an entrepreneur can never be frozen by overevaluating the choices in front of him. It is Mumbai that taught me, “To think big, you must first dare to dream beyond your boundaries.”
But life has a way of taking unexpected turns. Just as I was turning 19, I was called back by my elder brother to assist in running our small-scale PVC film factory situated near Ahmedabad. The business faced many challenges primarily due to extreme government control and restrictive import policies, leading to severe shortages of raw materials. This was my first real encounter with the limitations of the business environment in India. Yet, it was also an early lesson that laid the ground for the next set of businesses I was to start on.
The mid-1980s marked the beginning of a transformation in India. In 1985, under the leadership of Shri Rajiv Gandhi, the country took its first steps towards economic liberalization. The easing of import policies opened up new possibilities for businesses. Having run our PVC factory, I understood the pains of the small-scale import sector and therefore, despite having no prior experience in trading, I saw an opportunity in this environment of new policy. I took a leap and established a trading organization for importing polymers to supply the struggling small-scale industries.
By the time I turned 23, my trading venture was doing well. Then came 1991, when India faced a severe foreign exchange crisis that brought the country to the brink of economic collapse. It was during this crisis that Shri PV Narasimha Rao, the then Prime Minister, and Dr Manmohan Singh, the finance minister, outlined a series of bold economic reforms. These reforms included reducing import tariffs, deregulating industries, opening up the economy to foreign investments, and encouraging public-private partnerships in infrastructure development.
Every nation has its transformative years that change the direction of its future. While 1947 was about a free India, 1991 was about liberalisation of our businesses. And in 2014, under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, the essence of freedom was further accelerated as reforms and decisive governance took centre stage.
All these years stand as turning points, each building on the other in India’s remarkable journey. Reflecting on the events between 1985 and 1991, it is clear to me that these were more than just moments of economic change. They were forces that reshaped the business landscape of India and laid the foundation for India’s transformation.
These reforms marked the end of the ‘License Raj’, a period defined by excess regulation and control over the Indian economy. Many of the established business houses that had grown large since Independence failed to evolve and recognise the significance of the policy changes. They held on to the status quo, unable to evolve, and over time, became weak or irrelevant. Meanwhile, those who dared to break boundaries capitalised on the opportunities and set themselves up for success.
Looking back, we were one of them. In every crisis lies the potential for reinvention and it is our courage during these moments of truth that defines the path to greatness. For me, the liberalisation of 1991 was my second big break.
At 29, I established a global trading house dealing in polymers, metals, textiles, and agri-products. 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.
Thereafter, in 1994, we decided 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.
However, while we had been a beneficiary of the economic reforms, I began to realise the limitations of our business model. Trading, by its very nature, is volatile. To build a stable and sustainable enterprise and gain the confidence of the markets, I recognised that we needed to invest in assets that would provide a solid foundation for growth. I realised that to break the next set of boundaries, I would have to first start with challenging my own status quo.
The future belongs to those who dare to see beyond the present, who recognise that today’s limits are tomorrow’s starting points. And my third major break was about to come—one that would propel us into a new orbit. This realisation prompted the next critical shift in our business model.
In 1995, the Gujarat government announced its port-led industrial development plan through public-private partnerships. Around that time, we had been approached by the global commodities trader Cargill. It was a proposal to partner for manufacturing and sourcing salt from the Kutch region. While the partnership did not materialise, we were left with about 40,000 acres of marshy land and approval to build a captive jetty at Mundra for the export of salt.
What others saw as marshy barren land, we saw as a canvas waiting to be transformed. That canvas is now by far our nation’s largest port! Mundra became my ‘karmabhoomi’ and made my vision a reality, a powerful testimony to the fact that what you dream, you create, and what you think, you become. Mundra today hosts India’s largest port, the largest industrial Special Economic Zone, the largest container terminals, the largest thermal power plant, the largest solar manufacturing facility, the largest copper plant, and the largest edible oil refinery. And yet, we’re only about 10% of what Mundra will eventually become.
It stands as a living monument to the power of integrated business models and the strategic value of adjacencies, challenging the very concept of core competencies that the west advocates.
My dear friends, over the years, I learned a vital lesson. The bigger your bets, bigger are the boundaries you break and bigger the boundaries you break, lesser is the competition.
Picture Khavda in Kutch, one of the world’s most inhospitable deserts, now transformed into the world’s biggest renewable energy installation, spanning several hundred square kilometres.
Khavda is not just another project it is a vision. Already, generating more than 3,000 MW of clean energy and on track to reach 30 GW in the next five years, there is no parallel to Khavda today. For us, Khavda is a symbol of national pride, capturing the philosophy of everything that the Adani…