Mergers and de-mergers , acquisitions and divestments; the Big B of Indian business does it all with a passionate zeal to achieve his golden goal — that of getting his companies into the Fortune 500 league. This year, too, Birla took deal street by surprise as he merged group companies Birla Global Finance and Indo Gulf Fertilisers with Indian Rayon, thereby creating Aditya Birla Nuvo, a Rs 6,000-crore conglomerate within a conglomerate. It’s also the tenth year since Birla stepped into his father’s shoes and, at 38, he continues to be the youngest among the ten most powerful Indian CEOs.

The Birla clan has split many ways but ask the man on the street to name one Birla and chances are that nine times out of 10 he will name Kumar Mangalam Birla. And it’s not because with his personal wealth estimated to be over $2.1 billion, KMB is counted among the top 10 richest men under 40 years of age in the world.

For that alone definitely doesn’t define the man and cynics will always be quick to point out that he inherited a hugely successful business empire. Of course, cynics forget that the reins of the empire were thrust upon him quite suddenly. He was only 28-years-old, just out of London Business School when he was saddled with a Rs 7,000 crore group after the untimely death of his father in 1995.

Under his stewardship, the group has grown four times since and Birla has taken the largely commodity-focused group into newer areas like insurance, IT and entertainment. It’s under his leadership that the group has emerged as the largest integrated aluminium producer in Asia, operates the fastest growing copper company in the continent and is among the top 10 cement manufacturers in the world.

Often considered a bit too conservative by corporate watchers, Birla is set to shed that image with his plans to invest over Rs 20,000 crore in the next four years.

The past few years have been a period of consolidation and yet there have been times when KMB has shown tremendous aggressiveness as can be seen by the speed and gumption with which he has led the company to acquire the cement business of L&T and copper mines in Australia.

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