According to Forbes, Telugu’s richest man is also a mechanical engineer and a billionaire industrialist; Grandhi Mallikarjuna Rao is the founder of GMR Group. GMR Group has built some of the remarkable infrastructure and airports in India and across the world.
GM Rao is a visionary who brought Indian infrastructure on the international landscape and made them famous. International Airport of Delhi happens to be the best airport in world in terms of crowd management and security. A lot of construction companies were intimidated and were scared to bid for the construction of this airport but GM Rao had the requisite guts to take up the task and complete it.
Who is GM Rao? Where does he come from? What makes him so popular and inspirational?
This 66-year-old Mechanical Engineer is worth 2.6 Billion USD; he started GM Group from scratch and today it is present in more than 7 Countries. GM Group has changed the way infrastructures are built in India. GM Rao is not only visionary but also very much hard working. Featured in varied books, he is an inspiration for every engineer and nascent entrepreneur.
Born into a business family, GM Rao had the requisite genes to impress customers and build businesses. His was an upper-middle class family where education was easily available. Rao graduated as an engineer from Andhra University and later joined the state government as Junior Engineer.
GM Rao was doing well in life with his government job but the entrepreneur in him was making it difficult for him to survive. He started trading using the available infrastructure of his family business. Once he had developed a good relationship with suppliers and traders, he decided to go big.
There was a time when he acquired a Jute mill for great value in bargain; people were skeptical but GM Rao made it profitable and proved his entrepreneurial credentials.
Success of jute mill put him in the limelight and now every bank was ready to leverage him with funds. He made wise use of the leverages and expanded his presence in a wide number of industries.
Later, when his investments were growing, he decided to sell a share and start his business of infrastructure and energy. It was the beginning of a new era in developing India. GM Rao has changed the face of infrastructure industry in India.
GMR Group leads the market in India with its competitor GKV Group being 6 times smaller in market share, GMR Group is certainly ruling Indian market for now, source: Wikipedia.
A lot of assumptions of GM Rao being close to Chandra Babu Naidu has been made behind the success of GMR Group.
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Featured in one of the most iconic books of recent times
Rhonda Byrne, author of popular book The Secret, wrote about GM Rao on length in her new book The Hero. Rhonda took the opportunity and introduced the world to GM Rao, who surely is a Hero. The book describes him as a man of steel, who believed in himself, universe and took the right step. The book makes GM Rao appear as inspirational and highly motivating.
Rhonda has done a great work with all her books and by showing the world with the path to success by relating living examples; she surely is making people believe in the power of Universe.
Corporate Social Responsibility:
GM Rao runs a foundation named GMR Varalakshmi Foundation that works for the underprivileged society in more than 22 locations across the country. GM Rao is someone who loves his country immensely.
He recently donated 1540 Crore INR for charity during 2012. His contributions are being used by varied government and non-government agencies for bringing the required change in lives of under privileged people.
GM Rao also donated about 740 crore INR in 2013 and become the third most generous donor.
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Recognitions and career highlights :
His courage decision of building Indira Gandhi International Airport by going against all odd proves how tough he is. Hard working and dedicated are just some other terms that define this man the best.
- Economic Times awarded him with Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2007
- Media Reports make GMR Group the most reputed and trusted brand
- According to Forbes, GM Rao is the richest Telugu in country
GM Rao has now retired and has distributed the power to his business equally among his sons and son-in-laws. According to Business Standards, Trust is also going to be a part of decision making in all his business ventures.
image credit : gmrgroup
