(Reuters) – Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani stepped down on Tuesday from the role of director of the telecoms arm of Reliance Industries (RELI.NS) in favour of his son Akash, setting the stage for a leadership transition at his energy-to-retail conglomerate.
The change was disclosed in a regulatory filing by Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, which said Mukesh’s 30-year-old son and non-executive director Akash was being appointed chairman of the board.The move comes after Ambani, who ranks among the world’s top 10 billionaires, first signaled last year that his children would have significant roles in the family’s business empire.
Reliance is “in the process of effecting a momentous leadership transition,” he said at an event in December.
Akash’s twin sister Isha is a director on the boards of Jio as well as Reliance Retail, which houses the conglomerate’s ambitious bets in India’s brick-and-mortar space.The youngest of the siblings, Anant, sits on the board of renewable energy and oil and chemical units of Reliance as a director.
India’s telecoms sector had been upended by the entry of Jio in 2016, which triggered a price war that forced some rivals out of the market and turned profits into losses.
Jio, which started out offering mobile teleservices, has been aggressively investing in services like internet broadband and forging ties with handset makers to launch low-cost smartphones and providing 5G services.
