Lalit Jalan
Lalit Jalan is the CEO of Reliance Infrastructure Ltd, part of the Reliance Group, one of India’s largest corporate houses.[1] He concurrently holds the post of Chairman, BSES Rajdhani & BSES Yamuna Pvt. Ltd.[2]
RInfra is India's largest integrated infrastructure company developing projects, through various Special Purpose Vehicles, in several high growth areas in the infrastructure sector including power, roads, metro, cement and EPC.[3]
| Lalit Jalan | |
|---|---|
 Lalit Jalan, CEO, Reliance Infrastructure | |
| Born |
September 23, 1956 Kolkata, West Bengal, India |
| Residence | Mumbai, Maharashtra |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Ethnicity | Marwari |
| Alma mater | The Wharton School, Moore School of Engineering , IIT Kanpur |
| Occupation | CEO of Reliance Infrastructure & Chairman of BSES |
| Known for | Pioneering turnaround of Indian Power distribution |
| Spouse(s) | Anita Jalan |
| Children | Akshay Jalan & Varun Jalan |
| Website | |
| www.lalitjalan.in/lalitjalan/home.do | |
Lalit Jalan joined Reliance Industries Limited as Chief Executive Officer, Polypropylene Business in 1995. At 39, he was the youngest ever CEO at Reliance.
Jalan is a B. Tech from IIT – Kanpur in 1979. He did an MBA (Finance) from Wharton School and MS (Computer Science) from Moore School of Engineering, (where the first computer was built in 1945), University of Pennsylvania, 1982.[citation needed]
Early life
Lalit Jalan was born in Kolkata in a Marwari family. He did his schooling from St. Xaviers School during the early 1970s.
Personal life
Lalit Jalan resides in Mumbai with his family which includes his parents, wife Anita who is a fashion designer and two sons, who are also Wharton graduates and handle his family business.[4]
Career
Jalan started his career at General Electric as a Strategic Planner where he learnt the ropes from Jack Welch at his peak.[5] Having worked there for two years, he returned to India and started his own venture - ‘Jalan Brothers’ in his hometown Kolkata. Jalan turned it into a Rs 250-crore business before acceding to his Wharton School batchmate Anil Ambani’s wish to join the Reliance Industries Limited. Jalan’s entrepreneurial experience, during which he tried almost everything from real estate, software, logistics, distribution to even cement, is now an over Rs 1,000-crore business looked after by his son.[6]
In 1995, Jalan joined Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) as the Head of Polypropylene business. Jalan made the fastest ‘billion dollar hit’ in the industry by ramping up the business from zero to a billion dollars in 42 months flat, despite having no background in the petrochemicals industry. He also served as Head of the E-business at RIL, where he initiated practices such as e-procurement and SAP within the group.[7]
Jalan has served Reliance Group in many roles, including holding charge as CEO of RInfra’s Delhi power distribution company, where he reduced power theft from 55% to 4-5% and turned around its operations. At 39, he was the youngest ever CEO at a Reliance company.[8]
From 2003 onwards, Jalan has led the metamorphosis of Reliance Energy, a plain vanilla distribution company into the over Rs 23000 crore RInfra. Today RInfra is India’s largest integrated infrastructure development firm with interests in power, roads, metros, airports, cement and other urban infrastructure projects with a turnover exceeding $4.5 billion.[9]
References
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Sh. Lalit Jalan, CEO, Reliance Infrastructure - On Mumbai Power Tussle