Isha Ambani Piramal, Akash Ambani, the next-gen leaders at Reliance, are racing ahead to change the game with Jio

Reliance heirs Isha Ambani Piramal and Akash Ambani recently joined Adar Poonawalla, the Serum Institute of India CEO who has become a household name during the pandemic with his company manufacturing millions of doses of Oxford's still-under-trial Covid vaccine, Janine Pelosi, the CMO of Zoom - a company that has become an important part of the 'new normal', and Byju Raveendran, the man behind India's online education game changer Byju's, on Fortune's 40 Under 40 list. But the 28-year-olds, who serve as Directors on the Reliance Jio Board, are not new to the world of fame, or lists.
The magazine describes the twins' lives as 'enviable' with "private concerts featuring Beyoncé, partying with buddies Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas, living it up in a 27-storey residential skyscraping pleasure palace in Mumbai."

Going on to add, "When the glam siblings are not basking in unfathomable luxury, they’re training—along with their younger brother, Anant, 25, a more recent addition to Jio’s board—to take on their father’s empire."

But this training to join their father's 47-year-old USD 123.8 billion oil and petrochemical conglomerate Reliance Industries began early on when Akash graduated from Brown University with a degree in economics, and Isha, having received her undergraduate degree in Psychology and South Asian studies from Yale University, went on to earn a Master's degree from Stanford. A short stint at McKinsey followed, before she returned home and joined her father and brother at the family-run empire.


In the years that have followed, the twins have been instrumental in the growth of Jio.

"As Jio board members, they helped seal the company’s recent megadeal with Facebook—$5.7 billion for a 9.99% stake—plus major follow-on investments from marquee tech titans like Google, Qualcomm, and Intel. The flurry of investments lent the business an eye-popping $65 billion private valuation," Fortune said in its description of the scions' professional journey.

And now even as the pandemic rages they have their goals set for Jio Mart, a platform touted to take on Jeff Bezos's Amazon.

Working tirelessly behind the scenes, the brother-sister duo like to keep their private lives private. The exception to the case being their extravagant weddings to Shloka Mehta and Anand Piramal, respectively, the celebrations for which took place around the globe from St Moritz to Mumbai, and Lake Como to Udaipur.

Their other public appearances are mostly business-related with Akash being spotted at the Indian Premier League (IPL) auctions and their team Mumbai Indians' matches, and Isha at outings for the philanthropic arm of the company, Reliance Foundation.

The one event that they are, however, regulars at is the RIL AGM. The annual affair sees the entire Ambani clan in attendance, and this year's event - the first to be held virtually due to the pandemic - was no different in that regard. ‘Prince’ Akash and ‘princess’ Isha, as they are addressed by the shareholders, virtually spoke to the Reliance family about Jio Fibre, Jio Mart and also introduced the ambitious mixed reality headset ‘Jio Glass’ that will enable users to conduct holographic video calls with 3D figures of themselves.

Pandemic or not, these heirs are set to conquer new peaks, one day at a time.