Kumar Mangalam Birla has a long way to go but the early elevation of Ananya and Aryaman Birla to key board positions challenges the scions to help the textiles-aluminum-cement dependent conglomerate find its feet among new-age businesses
Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman of Aditya Birla Group. (File image)
Slowly but surely, the Aditya Birla group is putting in place a succession plan. Current chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla is only 55, no age to start planning for retirement, but old enough to start thinking about the future. To that end, over the last few months, Ananya and Aryaman, the older of his three children, have been inducted on the boards of the powerful Aditya Birla Management Corporation, the apex body that provides strategic direction to all of its businesses, as well as as Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd. (ABFRL) and now Grasim Ltd.
If the ABFRL appointment was meant to tap their understanding of the youth market, this week’s move to bring them on the board of Grasim is the clearest sign yet that in the future too, the reins of the storied group which traces its antecedents back to 1857, will stay in the hands of a Birla scion.
Grasim, set up in 1947 – along with its subsidiaries, UltraTech Cement, which is India’s largest cement producer, and financial services firm Aditya Birla Capital – is the flagship of the conglomerate, contributing over 20 per cent of its revenues. It has also in the past been the stepping stone to the top job.
Kumar Birla’s Tightrope Walk
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