Ajay Piramal

Piramal announced in 2019 he planned to resign as chairman of Shriram Capital Ltd. He was named chairman five years earlier.

In December 2018, his son married Isha Ambani, daughter of the world's 19th wealthiest person at that time. The wedding cost was estimated at up to $100 million, making it the one of the 5 most expensive weddings in history. Many international artists from Hollywood and Bollywood either performed or were guests, including Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan, Alia Bhatt, Beyonce, Aishwarya Rai and Amitabh Bachchan.

Piramal finances the Piramal Foundation. The foundation is quoted as taking about 10–15% of his time.

He led Piramal Enterprises Ltd invested in Vodafone India by buying 11% in two tranches. The first 5.5%, was bought in 2011 for Rs 2,856 crore and the second, the next year for Rs 3,007 crore. to buy a 5.5% stake in Vodafone India for INR 30.07 billion ($618 million), taking the total stake to 11%. In April 2014, Piramal Enterprises Ltd. sold its 11% stake for INR 8,900 crore, at a 51.78% premium to the price the company had paid in 2011–12.

In 2010, the Company sold the domestic formulation business to Abbott Laboratories for US$3.8 billion. Following that, Piramal Enterprises (then Piramal Healthcare), the flagship company of Piramal Group, has 3 major businesses – Pharma, Financial Services and Healthcare Insights & Analytics. In Pharma, the company focuses on over-the-counter (OTC) consumer products, global generics, contract manufacturing and critical care business. The financial services business—includes alternative asset management and investments into the Shriram Group as well as Piramal Capital & Housing Finance which is a registered as a housing finance company with the National Housing Bank (NHB) and is engaged in various financial services businesses.

The market capitalisation of Piramal Enterprises has grown four-fold in the last seven years, from an average of around Rs 10,000 crore in 2010–11, it has been moving around Rs 45,000 crore in April 2018.

In his spare time, Piramal pursues his passion for wildlife photography. He has also co-authored 'Light has come to me', a book about management lessons inspired from The Bhagwad Gita, published by the Times Group. He has also written a dance opera, 'The Dance of Life', which premiered in Mumbai in 2004, with stories inspired by the history of Indian science starring Mrinalini Sarabhai and Mallika Sarabhai.

Piramal holds a bachelor's degree in Science from the Jai Hind College and Basantsingh Institute of Science, University of Mumbai (then Bombay), a master's degree in management studies from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, University of Mumbai, and in 1992 attended the six-week Advanced Management Programme at Harvard Business School. Piramal has received an honorary doctorate by Amity University, India and Honorary Doctor of Science from IIT Indore

In 1988, he bought Nicholas Laboratories, an Australian multinational corporation. The company, which then competed with the likes of MNCs such as Pfizer and Glaxo, is now ranked fifth among the top 10 pharma companies in India, having made a string of overseas acquisitions like the Indian subsidiaries of Roche, Boehringer Mannheim, Rhone Poulenc, ICI and Hoechst Research Centre. India's first major shopping mall, Crossroads, was developed from three redundant Piramal factory buildings in Mumbai.

Crippling and violent strikes that started in 1982 had brought the textile industry to its knees. There were 7,000 employees in the textiles business. In 1986 Piramal walked out to a meeting with 4,000 workers, with a suggestion that workers accept a separation package, as the business was being wound down.

Incorporated in 1974, Piramal Glass Limited (PGL, erstwhile Gujarat Glass Limited) was acquired by the Piramal Group in 1984. In 1990, it was merged with Piramal Healthcare Limited (PHL, erstwhile Nicholas Piramal India Limited), and in 1998, the glass division was spun off to a subsidiary. The Company is engaged in the business of manufacturing packaging solutions for the perfumery and pharmaceuticals.

Piramal and his wife Swati opened the Piramal Museum of Art in November to showcase their art collection as well as that of other collectors. Their private art collection has 600 art works straddling 300 years of Indian art history from the colonial times to the more modern works by M. F. Husain and S. H. Raza. The collection also has Persian miniatures dating back to the 16th century.

Ajay Piramal (born 3 August 1955) is an Indian billionaire industrialist, and the chairman of the Piramal Group, a conglomerate with interests in pharmaceutical, financial services, real estate, healthcare analytics and glass packaging.

Ajay Piramal was born to Gopikisan Piramal and Lalita Piramal in Rajasthan, India on 3 August 1955. In 1977, at age 22, Piramal started out in his family's textile business, founded in 1934 by his grandfather Piramal Chatrabhuj. His father, Gopikisan Piramal, died suddenly in 1979, and after five years he lost an older brother to cancer, prompting him to take over the business reins.