In the long history of Indian business, no story is quite as steep — or quite as quick — as that of Gautam Adani. The college dropout who arrived in Mumbai at sixteen with no money and no contacts, sorted diamonds for two years in a Zaveri Bazaar trading house, returned to Ahmedabad at twenty to help his brother import plastic, and by his early thirties had won the concession to build what would become one of the largest commercial ports in India, today sits at the head of the Adani Group — a sprawling conglomerate spanning ports, energy, airports, cement, media, mining, defence, and edible oil that employs more than 45,000 people and is the largest infrastructure operator in South Asia. Behind every Adani company lies a deeply Gujarati Jain family story — a textile-merchant father, seven siblings spread across continents, a dentist wife who quietly built one of India's largest foundations, and two young sons who are now visibly running the next generation of the group.

The Family's Roots: The Jain Banias of Tharad, Banaskantha

The Adani family belongs to the Jain Bania community of north Gujarat, with ancestral roots in the village of Tharad in the Banaskantha district of Gujarat — a dry, semi-arid region that for generations has produced traders, financiers, and merchants who left the village young in search of opportunity. The Adanis followed that same tradition; by the mid-twentieth century they had relocated to the rapidly industrialising city of Ahmedabad, where Gautam's father had set up a small textile trading business.

Like most Gujarati Jain Bania families, the Adanis carry forward a strict vegetarian, deeply religious household tradition. Gautam himself is a lifelong Jain vegetarian and follows the religious practices of the community, including donations to Jain causes and observance of major festivals.

His Father: Shantilal Adani — The Textile Merchant Who Raised Eight Children

Shantilal Adani was a small textile merchant in Ahmedabad — a trader of cotton and yarn at the lower-middle-class end of the city's huge textile economy. He raised eight children on a modest income, and by every account of his sons, he was a man of complete personal integrity who instilled in his children the trader's discipline: be careful with money, honour your commitments, work hard.

He died many years ago, but his disciplined approach to small-margin trading is widely cited in the family as the foundation on which all of his sons later built their own businesses.

His Mother: Shanti Adani

Shanti Adani ran the eight-child household in Ahmedabad through the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. She passed away many years ago. As is true of most Gujarati Jain women of her generation, very little of her public biography is recorded; her influence is felt instead in the deep family closeness that connects the eight Adani siblings across India, Singapore, and Dubai.

His Brothers: Vinod, Mahasukh, Rajesh, and Vasant

Gautam is one of eight siblings — and among his siblings, four brothers have become significant figures in the Adani business universe in their own right.

Vinod Adani, the eldest, has built a long and quiet career as a Singapore- and Dubai-based businessman, where he handles much of the international and offshore structure of the Adani family's interests. He has lived outside India for decades. Vinod is married to Ranjanben Adani.

Mahasukh Adani was the brother who first brought Gautam into industry. In the early 1980s, he ran a small plastics import business in Ahmedabad, and it was Mahasukh who persuaded Gautam to leave the diamond trade in Mumbai and return to Gujarat to help him source PVC from abroad — a partnership that would eventually evolve into the export-trading company Gautam founded in 1988.

Rajesh Shantilal Adani, born 7 December 1964, is Gautam's younger brother. He has worked alongside Gautam at the Adani Group since the very early days and today serves as Managing Director of Adani Enterprises, the listed flagship of the group.

Vasant Adani also remains active in the broader family enterprise.

His Path: From Diamond Trader at 16 to Port Operator at 33

Gautam himself was born on 24 June 1962 in Ahmedabad. He studied at Sheth Chimanlal Nagindas Vidyalaya in Ahmedabad and enrolled at Gujarat University for a Bachelor of Commerce, but dropped out in his second year. In 1978, at the age of sixteen, he moved alone to Mumbai and took a job sorting diamonds at the Mahendra Brothers diamond house in Zaveri Bazaar. Within three years he was setting up his own small diamond-brokerage operation; he is reported to have made his first ₹100,000 (about $5,000 at the time) before he was twenty.

In 1981, his elder brother Mahasukh called him back to Ahmedabad to help run the plastics business. By 1988 Gautam had founded Adani Exports Limited — initially as a commodity trader of agricultural and metal goods — which would later be renamed Adani Enterprises Limited.

In 1995, the Government of Gujarat granted Adani the concession to build and operate the Mundra Port on the Gulf of Kutch — a remote stretch of coastline in northwest Gujarat that few Indian businessmen at the time considered viable. That single concession would, over the next three decades, become the foundation of the entire Adani empire. Today Mundra is the largest commercial port in India, and Adani Ports & SEZ is the country's largest private port operator.

His Wife: Priti Adani — The Dentist Who Built a National Foundation

Priti Adani, born Priti Vyas in Ahmedabad, trained as a dentist before marriage. Like her husband, she comes from a Gujarati Jain family. She and Gautam married in 1985, and she practised dentistry in the early years of their marriage. As the Adani Group grew, she stepped away from her clinical practice and turned to philanthropy and education.

She is today the chair of the Adani Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Adani Group, which has, since its founding in 1996, worked across more than 5,000 villages in India on education, healthcare, livelihood development, and sustainable agriculture. She is one of the most influential corporate philanthropists in India today, and her work has won her the Nirma Foundation award and other national recognitions.

Their Sons: Karan and Jeet Adani

Gautam and Priti have two sons, both of whom are now visibly running parts of the Adani Group.

Karan Adani, born 7 December 1987, is the elder son. He studied Economics at Purdue University in the United States, returned to India in 2009 to join the family business, and was named Managing Director of Adani Ports & SEZ Limited — the original engine of the Adani empire — in 2017. He oversees the group's port and logistics infrastructure across India, Israel, Sri Lanka, Australia, and Tanzania.

He married Paridhi Shroff in 2013. Paridhi is the daughter of Cyril Shroff, managing partner of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, one of India's largest corporate law firms. The wedding, in Goa, was widely reported as one of the most prominent business-family unions of the decade.

Jeet Adani, born around 1998, is the younger son. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania and joined the group in his early twenties. He is Director, Adani Airports Holdings, leading the group's airports business, which now operates eight Indian airports including Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mangalore, Guwahati, Trivandrum, Jaipur, and Navi Mumbai.

Jeet married Diva Jaimin Shah in February 2025. The wedding in Ahmedabad was notable both for its scale and for the family's deliberate signalling of "responsible celebration" — a portion of the wedding budget was donated to charitable causes.

The Adani Family Tree at a Glance

Community / Origins

  • Jain Bania community of north Gujarat
  • Ancestral village: Tharad, Banaskantha district
  • Family settled in Ahmedabad by mid-twentieth century

Parents

  • Father: Shantilal Adani — Ahmedabad textile merchant
  • Mother: Shanti Adani

Siblings (Gautam is one of 8)

  • Vinod Adani — Singapore/Dubai-based businessman; oversees international family interests
  • Mahasukh Adani — early plastics-importer who first brought Gautam into industry
  • Rajesh Shantilal Adani (b. 7 December 1964) — Managing Director, Adani Enterprises
  • Vasant Adani and other siblings active in broader family enterprise

Gautam Adani

  • Born 24 June 1962, Ahmedabad
  • Dropped out of Gujarat University B.Com in second year
  • 1978 moved to Mumbai; sorted diamonds at Mahendra Brothers in Zaveri Bazaar
  • 1981 returned to Ahmedabad to join brother Mahasukh's plastics business
  • 1988 founded Adani Exports Limited (now Adani Enterprises)
  • 1995 awarded Mundra Port concession by Government of Gujarat
  • Today: Chairman, Adani Group

Wife: Priti Adani née Vyas

  • Dentist by training
  • Married Gautam in 1985
  • Chairperson, Adani Foundation

Children

  • Karan Adani (b. 7 December 1987) — Managing Director, Adani Ports & SEZ
    • Wife: Paridhi Shroff (b. 1988) — daughter of Cyril Shroff (Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas)
    • Married 2013
  • Jeet Adani (b. ~1998) — Director, Adani Airports Holdings
    • Wife: Diva Jaimin Shah
    • Married February 2025

The Adani Group Today

Gautam Adani's company is today one of the largest privately-held industrial groups in India. The publicly listed companies under the Adani umbrella include:

  • Adani Enterprises Limited — the flagship; integrated resources and infrastructure
  • Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) — India's largest private port operator
  • Adani Green Energy — one of the world's largest solar-power developers
  • Adani Power — large thermal-power generator
  • Adani Transmission and Adani Total Gas — transmission and gas-distribution
  • Adani Wilmar — joint venture producing the Fortune brand of edible oil
  • Ambuja Cements and ACC — two of India's largest cement producers, acquired in 2022

The group operates ports, airports, mines, transmission lines, solar farms, cement plants, edible-oil refineries, defence equipment, and now data centres. The Adanis are India's largest private infrastructure operators.

What the Adani Family Story Teaches Us

The Adani story is the modern Gujarati Bania story written at its largest scale. A textile-merchant father in Ahmedabad. Eight children raised on a single small income. One son who left for Mumbai at sixteen with nothing, sorted diamonds for two years, came home, and over forty years built one of the largest industrial groups in modern India. A wife who studied dentistry. Two sons who now run the next generation. Brothers and cousins spread across India, Singapore, and Dubai who together carry the family enterprise.

For every family — large or small, famous or otherwise — the Adani story carries the same lesson. Family is the fundamental unit of trust in Indian business and in Indian life. The cousins, the brothers, the in-laws, the daughters-in-law and sons-in-law — they all belong on the tree. Write them down. The map of who married whom and who runs which business is the real story of how a family built what it built.

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