Gautam Shantilal Adani is an Indian billionaire industrialist and philanthropist who is the chairman and founder of the Adani Group — an Ahmedabad-based multinational conglomerate involved in port development and operations in India.
Gautam Shantilal Adani is an Indian billionaire industrialist and philanthropist who is the chairman and founder of the Adani Group — an Ahmedabad-based multinational conglomerate involved in infrastructure development and operations in India. Adani is the president of the Adani Foundation, which is primarily led by his wife, Priti Adani.

He founded the Adani Group in 1988 and diversified his business into resources, logistics, energy, agriculture, defence and aerospace, ports, power amongst others. According to Forbes, his family’s net worth is estimated to be around US$78.6 billion as of 9 June 2021. He was the second richest man in Asia and 13th richest man in the world according to Forbes, a spot that he attained in 2021. As of 2018 he had a 66% stake in Adani Ports & SEZ, 75% stake in Adani Enterprises, 73% stake in Adani Power, and a 75% stake in Adani Transmission. On 17 June 2021, Adani lost the title of the second richest man in Asia due to the sudden decrease in share prices of the Adani Group.

Adani is born in a Gujarati Jain family to Shantilal and Shanti Adani in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. He has 7 siblings and his parents had migrated from the town of Tharad in the northern part of Gujarat. His father was a textile merchant. He was educated at Sheth Chimanlal Nagindas Vidyalaya school in Ahmedabad. He enrolled for a bachelor’s degree in commerce at Gujarat University, but dropped out after the second year. Adani was keen on business, but not his father’s textile business.

In 1978, as a teenager, Adani moved to Mumbai to work as a diamond sorter for Mahendra Brothers. He worked there for 2-3 years before establishing his own diamond brokerage firm at Zaveri Bazaar, Mumbai.

In 1981, his elder brother Mansukhbhai Adani bought a plastics unit in Ahmedabad and invited him to manage the operations. This venture turned out to be Adani’s gateway to global trading through polyvinyl chloride (PVC) imports.

In 1985, he started importing primary polymers for small-scale industries. In 1988, Adani established Adani Exports, now known as Adani Enterprises – the holding company of the Adani Group. Originally, the company dealt in agricultural and power commodities.

In 1991, the economic liberalisation policies turned out to be favourable for his company and he started expanding the businesses into trading of metals, textiles, and agro products.[

In 1994, the Government of Gujarat announced managerial outsourcing of the Mundra Port and in 1995, Adani got the contract.
In 1995, he set up the first jetty. Originally operated by Mundra Port & Special Economic Zone, the operations were transferred to Adani Ports & SEZ (APSEZ). Today, the company is the largest private multi-port operator. Mundra Port is the largest private sector port in India, with the capacity of handling close to 210 million tons of cargo per annum.

In 1996, the power business arm of the Adani Group, Adani Power, was founded by Adani. Adani Power holds thermal power plants with a capacity of 4620 MW, the largest private thermal power producer of the country
In 2006, Adani entered the power generation business. From 2009 to 2012, he acquired Abbot Point Port in Australia and Carmichael Coal in Queensland.

In May 2020, Adani won the world’s largest solar bid by the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) worth $6 billion. The 8000 MW photovoltaic power plant project will be taken up by Adani Green; and Adani Solar will establish 2000 MW of additional solar cell and module manufacturing capacity.

Adani led diversified conglomerate Adani Group imported four ISO cryogenic tanks filled with 80 metric tones of liquid medical oxygen from Dammam in Saudi Arabia to Mundra in Gujarat. The group is also securing 5,000 medical-grade oxygen cylinders from Linde Saudi Arabia. In a Twitter post, Adani shared that each day his group is supplying 1,500 cylinders with medical oxygen to wherever they are needed in Kutch of Gujarat. Adani is the president of the Adani Foundation, funded through the Adani Group. It was founded in 1996. Other than Gujarat, the Foundation operates in the states of Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha.

In March 2020, he contributed ₹100 crore to the PM CARES Fund through his group’s philanthropy arm, to fight the Coronavirus outbreak A contribution of ₹5 crore was made to the Gujarat CM Relief Fund and ₹1 crore to the Maharashtra CM Relief Fund.

Adani led diversified conglomerate Adani Group imported four ISO cryogenic tanks filled with 80 metric tones of liquid medical oxygen from Dammam in Saudi Arabia to Mundra in Gujarat. The group is also securing 5,000 medical-grade oxygen cylinders from Linde Saudi Arabia. In a Twitter post, Adani shared that each day his group is supplying 1,500 cylinders with medical oxygen to wherever they are needed in Kutch of Gujarat.