Portrait of a Businesswoman

Nita Ambani manages a not-inconsiderable enterprise with activities ranging from cricket to healthcare

It is not easy scheduling an interview with Nita Ambani. She is going through a particularly busy phase at the moment. She is supervising the building of a new wing at Mumbai’s Hurkisondas Nurrotumdas Hospital, run by a trust controlled by the Dhirubhai Ambani Foundation, and it requires lots of concentrated attention. She has to also make sure that the Mumbai Indians are in perfect shape for the Champions League. There is a list of sportsmen to be reviewed to determine who will go to the US on a sports scholarship from IMG Reliance, a joint venture between Reliance Industries (RIL) and IMG World.

Then there is the Dhirubhai Ambani International School (DAIS) — it runs smoothly, but Nita cannot stay away from the project closest to her heart and needs to go there regularly. Also, there are the affairs of the Dhirubhai Ambani Foundation, which she chairs, to go through. And, of course, the numerous family and other commitments that are part and parcel of being wife of Mukesh Ambani and the first lady of the RIL Empire.
It takes us three weeks and numerous calls to fix the meeting. But once she confirms it, there are no hitches. We are ushered into the beautiful  waiting room of her office on the 12th floor of Maker Chamber 4 in Mumbai’s Nariman Point. Unlike the reception areas of other corporate bosses, this one is remarkably bare — no magazines, newspapers or phones: no clutter at all.

Nita is just winding up another meeting, but we do not have to wait long. She meets us within 10 minutes of the appointed time. “Everything at Reliance is always a bit of a whirlwind. So many things are happening all the time that you have to constantly shift focus,” she laughs by way of explaining the time it took to catch up with her. But once we are with her, there are no interruptions. Nita gives her full attention to anything she is doing during the time she has allotted for it.  Like the waiting room, the office is also remarkably free of clutter. The files, books, newspapers and magazines are elsewhere. At her office, she only meets people, and focuses just on them.

Accidental Businesswoman?

Nita seems an accidental businesswoman. She got dragged into project execution almost two decades after she married Mukesh. Now she runs a not-inconsiderable enterprise with myriad activities. Most things she runs directly — the hospital and the school — are not technically businesses, unlike the Mumbai Indians franchise. But they are enormous and complex organizations nonetheless, employing hundreds of people.
They are private entities and trusts, so it is notoriously difficult to get an accurate handle on numbers. Intelligent estimates are, nevertheless, possible. We estimate the activities Nita supervises today top Rs 750 crore in revenues and over Rs 1,000 crore in annual investment budgets. Hardly a small business.
OFF THE PITCH: Nita looks after the management of IPL team Mumbai Indians, which the Ambanis bought in 2007 for Rs 510 crore, CLASSROOM LESSONS: The Dhirubhai Ambani International School was conceptualized and built from scratch by Nita Ambani.As Nita herself points out, she didn’t harbour any ambitions to get involved in the family business. She had married young (at 21), had three children, and was fully occupied with taking care of them and her in-laws, and supporting Mukesh. She did find time to do a teacher’s training programme and pursue a course in interior design. She even briefly worked as a school teacher (at Sunrise Elementary, a small private school on Mumbai’s Napean Sea Road), a job she enjoyed thoroughly. Then, the Ambani family bought SeaWind, a 19-storey building in Mumbai’s Cuffe Parade. They wanted to convert it into the family residence. And Nita was told to do the interiors.  Now, working out the interior design of a family home, no matter how big, is a little different from the work that was required on SeaWind: it was hardly your normal house. There were floors set aside for reception of important business visitors. There were floors marked for entertainment alone. Large portions of the building had to compare with the best international hotel. She did not have to worry too much about the budget. The Reliance empire was growing by leaps and bounds. All she had to worry about was the quality of the interiors.

t took her two years to complete. But the results gave her husband the confidence that she could be trusted to supervise large, complex projects. A few years later, the refinery at Jamnagar was initiated, and Nita was roped in to handle the execution of the township.

A Homemaker For Others

If doing up the interiors of SeaWind was huge, the Jamnagar Township was gargantuan in every respect. Spread over 415 acres, it was to house over 2,500 families of the refinery employees. There were schools to be built, gardens and parks to be conceptualised, shopping complexes and guest houses to be erected. Jamnagar was a smallish town with basic facilities, 300 km from Ahmedabad. The refinery complex was located 25 km from Jamnagar — a barren, dusty tract of land. Only a few roads within the complex were ready, and only SUVs could negotiate the dirt tracks.Nita cut her teeth as a manager there. She travelled there several times a week for two years. She would take a company plane at 7 am and stay there for 3-4 days. She had to deal with all kinds of people — architects, engineers, big contractors, gardeners, masons, etc. It was a crash course in people management. And it helped that Nita is used to putting others at ease.

Nita Ambani with her son Akash during a Mumbai Indians IPL match (ABP)

Though Nita provided no figures, sources estimate the Jamnagar township budget was roughly Rs 800 crore in 1997-98. She waded into the project, pored over micro details, and demanded the same perfectionism that Mukesh and Dhirubhai sought in the other areas of the refinery project.

Lessons on the Job

By the time the township was completed, Nita had learnt quite a few things about project management, and about herself. She realised that having the big idea was not enough — you needed to get deep into the nitty-gritty. Second, that she was a quick study. She could pick up things that she knew nothing about provided she asked lots of questions and listened to experts, and worked very hard. And Reliance had many experts she could turn to for help.
She built on these lessons in her next projects: the development of the Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City (DAKC) in 2001. The school, the expansion of the hospital, and, finally, the management of IPL team Mumbai Indians, which the Ambanis bought in 2007 for Rs 510 crore, were to follow.The DAKC project was as complex as Jamnagar, but very different. It was a high-tech feel for a completely geeky audience, full of Java Green coffee shops, Reliance Web Worlds and a campus-like environment. Tough, yes, but by now, she was getting used to executing big projects involving big funds. Finance was not something she had trained in. DAKC required her to report progress to the Reliance Infocomm board: that required familiarity with loads of financial details, something she didn’t have to do in Jamnagar or SeaWind. “I had to think the way people thought within the boardroom,” she recalls. “‘How would I compare costs or variables?’ ‘It’s creative and looks good, but at what price?’ I was answerable for all those questions.” She worked hard and learnt.

The Pride And The Passion

Having a perfectionist streak helped. Old friend Radhika Kazi says Nita was extremely conscientious and a bit of a perfectionist even as a young girl. In the 1970s, when all the girls were going to dance classes, many bunked during Mumbai’s infamous monsoons. But Nita always turned up.

JAMNAGAR DAYS: Nita was roped in to handle the execution of the gargantuan township that was part of RIL’s Jamnagar refineryAnother youthful trait, which manifests itself in her management style today as well, is her obsession with detail. Kazi says when both of them were part of the Navaratri ballet (where Dhirubhai and Kokilaben spotted her and decided that she would be Mukesh’s wife), Nita would walk through the hall before the show, checking out lights and the seating, assessing how the audience would see the performance.
That detail orientation cropped up while building Jamnagar, DAKC, and when DAIS was conceptualised. She would ride the school bus to assess the comfort, decide colour, the upholstery and cushioning. She even got involved in designing the school uniform and the food served in the cafeteria. The desire for perfection was becoming an obsession with the smallest details.“It’s difficult to let go,” acknowledges Nita. “I often tell people I have floodlights in my life, but I get so caught up doing the spotlights that I sometimes forget I need to let people start doing their things, and moving on to the next stage.” She still has the final say on faculty appointments at DAIS. “Mukesh institutionalises things so well, and that’s what I found to be the hardest learning,” she says.But the craving for detail helps out in myriad other ways. At a review meeting on the plans for the new wing at Hurkisondas hospital, Mukesh was talking about managing patient traffic with escalators on the first three levels — largely diagnostic and out-patient — and elevators for those who were unfamiliar with escalators. Nita pointed out the plans did not account for the patients’ families. “I never go to even the dentist without taking Akash or Isha,” she is said to have told the meeting. “In India, people never go to hospital alone, but always with family, and facilities needed to be created for them.” The architects had to go back to the drawing board to include area for patients’ families.
Like the eye for detail, her energy and stamina also help. She is up every morning at 7 — has had to from when she had to get three kids ready for school — and begins her day practising Bharatanatyam followed by prayers, and then on to work demands of the day. “It used to be school (DAIS) in the initial years. I would leave at 8:15 am every day, even Sunday,” she recalls. “Otherwise, it’s about 11.30 am, and then it’s through till the evening. It varies every day.”

School Experiments

With Jamnagar and DAKC, you could call Nita a superb project manager, but she was not conceptualising the entire organisation, or building or running things long term. What she did was to oversee distinct parts of the project. All that changed with DAIS in Bandra-Kurla, something she conceptualised and built from scratch. Kazi says the idea was conceived as she, Nita and other friends waited outside Campion School in south Mumbai for their children to finish their exams (Nita took her children to school every day throughout their schooling).“We tossed around the idea of creating an institution where going to school would actually be fun,” says Kazi. And in keeping with the RIL ethos, Nita thought big: an education that would meet global standards. Importantly, it was about overall development, not just academics: sports, culture and social responsibility would be part of the curriculum.

Zarine Munshi, one of the administrators at DAIS, was teaching at JB Petit, another south Mumbai girls’ school where Nita’s daughter Isha studied. Nita lured her away by presenting the concept of a school with international standards of excellence. “The ethos of the school is that the child is the most important and, hence, central part of the system,” says Munshi.Nita got involved in every detail. She interviewed teachers, oversaw building and the curricula. Nothing was too small. Seven years after the school was started, she still sits on the organising committee for the annual day event. “It’s not a 10-to-5 job for her; it’s a passion and a commitment,” says Chanda Kochhar, managing director and CEO of ICICI Bank, whose daughter Aarti graduated from DAIS.

CAMPUS VIEW: During the building of Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City, Nita was closely involved in the nitty-gritty (BW pic by Sanjit Kundu).Other parents are equally ecstatic. Jayant Khosla, CEO of Essar Telecom in Africa, calls it magic. His two sons were in the first batch of students to enrol in the school. “The lady is magnificent,” says Khosla. “I attend every PTA meeting when I am in the country.” Of course, people point out that DAIS is an elitist school, and not affordable for most.

Playing For Keeps

Today, what takes up much of Nita’s time is the IPL team. To a large extent, it is an acquired interest. Before RIL bid for Mumbai Indians, Nita’s interest in cricket was a distant childhood memory. Her mother was an avid cricket fan; so was her father. Nita and her sister went along to the matches as if to a picnic, taking books to read or things to do. Salim Durrani, Tiger Pataudi and Sunil Gavaskar were just names to her.Piyush Pandey, head of advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, who works with Nita on the branding of Mumbai Indians, says her passion is in that she took on the job. “Forget this job, or cricket, for a moment: she aims for perfection; it is a big thing with her,” he says. “For instance, she was involved with creating the team logo as if her entire contribution depended on it.”The Mumbai Indians team taught her new lessons. It was a pack of highly talented sportsmen, with several superstars, but was not firing as a team. “I went to South Africa (for IPL2) as the owner’s wife waving a flag,” Nita recalls. “We lost badly. I told Mukesh that as owners we could not disappear on the team, and realised that if I have to take over the team’s management, I needed to know the game.” The loss of the matches propelled her interest in wanting to learn the game.Three days after the team’s return from South Africa, she held her first team meeting. From then on, it was a rigorous schedule of planning meetings, bonding camps — younger players could get intimidated by the presence of an icon like Sachin Tendulkar, and such barriers needed to be broken. She went to every team meeting, and through every team-building and motivation exercise as a participant.

“We talked about what happened in our daily lives, and the difficult patches we had been through,” says Tendulkar. “We — Harbhajan (Singh), Zaheer (Khan) and I — talked about our journey, explaining to the team’s youngsters how we overcame different challenges.” Wherever they went, Nita would go. “She is a part of the team, not just the owner,” says Tendulkar.Team-building also included a constant review of its components, including players and staff. Nita was a keen participant in bidding for new talent — she learnt all the nuances of the game from the team’s brain trust, mainly Tendulkar, Harbhajan and Zaheer, and travelled the world watching games. Everyone’s role was defined clearly, and reviewed carefully. Some were let go, and others such as Robin Singh and T.A. Sekhar brought in as coaches. It paid off: the team made it to the final of IPL3.

The marketing, branding and merchandising were similarly scrutinised. Sponsors — there are 10 in all — and endorsements were fixed only at the right price. “Those who wanted a star like Tendulkar as part of a package deal — effectively at a discount — were discouraged,” says an observer. “No free tickets or giveaways either.” Shifting the team’s match venue from DY Patil Stadium to Brabourne Stadium did more than double ticket revenues. Merchandise sales went up six fold between IPL2 and IPL3.

Analysts say that the Mumbai Indians franchise has the right idea: watch the costs keenly (player salaries and support staff costs, Rs 24 crore, by our estimates; travel and equipment, Rs 18 crore; annual franchisee fee, Rs 51 crore; and marketing, etc., Rs 20 crore); run a tight ship (getting the right personnel); and maximise revenues (sponsorships, Rs 36 crore; ticket sales,  Rs 15 crore; merchandising, Rs 18 crore; and the share of broadcast and central IPL pool revenues, Rs 55 crore). One might say she brought the principles of corporate management to an anarchic area dominated by superstars and big egos, and turned in a modest operational profit in IPL3.

“Mukesh institutionalises things so well, and that’s what I found to be the hardest learning” (BW pic by Satheesh Nair)And the discipline continued: a week after IPL3 concluded on 25 April 2010, the team was back in practice and planning for the Champions League. In the past two weeks, there was thinking about new merchandise (including the vuvuzelas that were popular at the soccer World Cup in South Africa). In June, the team went through training in Chennai, followed by a schedule of games in Australia in July, where conditions are similar to those in South Africa, the venue of the Champions League.

The CEO Style

Nita is something of a fashionista; at RIL’s annual general meeting this year, she carried a Hermes Birkin handbag. Named after actress Jane Birkin, fashion reporters say, the bag is representative of today’s woman CEO: “busy, purposeful, confident, short on time, long on action”. Appropriately enough, Hermes produces just five of these bags each week, made by a single craftsman.

But her CEO-style is much harder to pin down. She handles a plethora of businesses, yet has a small team, perhaps three people: a secretary at the office, and another shared resource at home. True, she has teams in her enterprises, and specific liaisons at the hospital, school and the Mumbai Indians team.She is generally impeccably dressed, though she sometimes goes casual during the Mumbai Indians team meetings. Though she has a reputation for not tolerating slipshod work, Nita is also a people’s person who revels in making employees feel comfortable. Many people who have worked with her praise her for her time- management skills.And though she avoids saying anything about the broader RIL work, insiders say Mukesh quite often takes her views on many things because she brings a certain commonsense approach to most issues. It is likely that work being directly supervised by her will only grow in the future. Can she retain her biggest strengths — her people-centric management style and her passion for details — as the work grows bigger? Her friends and associates are confident she will. “She doesn’t run a family business,” says O&M’s Pandey. “She runs the business like a family.”After all, she has had training from two legendary corporate builders — her father-in-law and her husband. As India Inc.’s first lady steps out, there will be greater challenges — the planned university, the Rs 400-crore hospital expansion project and the sports management business — for some of which she will have to look for training elsewhere.

Nita Ambani, businesswoman, maybe even CEO, is still a work in progress.