Nita Ambani steps into the business limelight at EIH

Who is Mukesh Ambani’s likely successor? The logical answer would be one of his children - or all of them, assuming the empire is divided - but it wouldn’t be a great idea to count his wife Nita Ambani out.

Six years his junior, 48-year-old Nita Ambani has just made her first corporate foray by becoming non-executive director of East India Hotels (EIH), which runs the Oberoi and Trident brands of hotels in India. Mukesh Ambani entered the picture by picking up an 14 percent stake in this hotels group as a kind of white knight to ward off the designs of ITC Hotels, which also has a significant stake.

[caption id=“attachment_120730” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Nita Ambani. Reuters”]  [/caption]

So, it is quite possible that Nita Ambani is merely there to signal an Ambani presence, rather than an intent to take charge. But since the Oberois and the Ambanis have announced plans to work together on some projects, the Nita Ambani entry on the EIH board is not merely ornamental.

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It’s the first time that any Reliance (RIL) representative has been inducted on the EIH board. Three other people also joined the board, according to media reports.

In many ways, EIH will be Nita Ambani’s first corporate role - though running the Dhirubhai Ambani International School and the Mumbai Indians IPL Team are not minor responsibilities either.

But the EIH role includes learning the ropes for running a business. In a Mint report, she insisted that while RIL was a long-term investor in the Oberoi chain, it was not seeking to run the company as its interest was financial. “It’s a financial investment… It’s a long-term investment… But right now, I am in a learning mode with Mr Oberoi and trying to see how we can support it to make it an international name,” she said.

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RIL has no visible presence in the hospitality business as yet, so this appointment allows her to make her mark by implementing whatever plans the group may have in this arena - and taking due credit for it. More importantly, it gives her enough space and time to learn about the business.

RIL upped its stake in EIH last year to fend off any potential takeover bid from ITC, which had built up a 14.98 percent stake in EIH over 10 years.Most analysts believe that Nita’s inclusion on the EIH board suggests that RIL may now be prepared to play a larger role in the hospitality business.

No doubt it will be a challenge, but Nita Ambani is no stranger to challenges. In a recent interview with idiva.com, which is part of the Times group, the co-owner of Mumbai Indians admitted that she didn’t know anything about cricket when her husband bought the team three years ago. But after a testing two years, which included attending the team’s punishing practice schedules, she managed to acquire a level of expertise that allowed her to understand what was needed to fix the team’s abysmal early-years performance.

“For two years in a row, we were at the bottom of the table. It was the IPL 2 disasters in South Africa that spurred me to fly halfway across the globe to be with the boys. I selected the core team- Sachin, Bhajji and Zaheer- and we got to work on our weaknesses,” she said in a recent interview.

Next on her agenda, a 400-plus bed multi-specialty hospital, along with Reliance University, an ambitious Navi Mumbai-based project.

Of course, the ascendancy of Nita Ambani means that for now, her children might not have to take on the pressure of becoming leaders of the Ambani empire any time soon.

India’s richest couple have three children - Akash, Isha and Anant. Akash and Isha are twins and in their late teens. Akash is studying in Brown University in the US in the undergraduate class of 2013, while Isha is at Yale University. Both of them are usually seen at the company’s annual general meetings along with mom Nita and grandmother Kokilaben.

Given that Akash has been making more public appearances- from sitting next to his mother at the recently concluded Indian Premier League auction to standing behind his father when he was signing a deal with BP - there was a lot of buzz that he was already being groomed for a position within his father’s empire.

That is still likely to happen. But don’t count Nita Ambani out, too.