Sept. 2: Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal’s son Mr Shravin Mittal is the latest scion to join his family business. Recently, India Inc has seen a number of children joining their family business as these companies try to groom the second level of leadership in the company.
Only on Wednesday, India’s third-biggest IT firm Wipro announced that Mr Rishad Premji, son of Mr Azim Premji has been appointed as the chief strategy officer. Mr Shravin Bharti Mittal has been appointed as manager with Bharti Airtel International (Netherlands) BV. He will be part of Bharti Airtel’s international operations. He will be paid 50,000 euros per annum.
Prior to joining Bharti Airtel, Mr Shravin was working with JP Morgan Cazenove in London as an analyst in the technology, media and telecommunications division of the investment banking unit. He was a member of both pitch and execution teams advising on M&A and restructuring transactions. He also performed valuation analysis, research and strategic evaluations for IPO and M&A.
Mr Mittal has earlier worked with Merrill Lynch (New York) and Ernst and Young (London) besides summer internships at IMG and Deutsche Bank. He holds a B.Sc. degree in Accounting and Finance from the University of Bath (UK). He has also been the president of the Bath Asian Student Society.
Such appointments are seen as training ground for these heirs to later on handle the bigger responsibilities in the companies. Last year Ms Lakshmi Venu, daughter of industrialist Mr Venu Srinivasan was inducted as a director on the board of auto-component maker Sundaram Clayton Ltd, TVS Motors’ holding company. In the rival two wheeler company, Bajaj Auto, Mr Rahul Bajaj’s son Rajiv Bajaj is already running the company successfully. Future Group’s Mr Kishore Biyani daughter Ms Ashni Biyani is managing larger Big Bazaar stores of the company. Mr Narayana Murthy, chairman, Infosys is one of the few entrepreneurs who has said that his son Rohan will do what interests him.