Shiv Nadar: The Richest Tamilan in the World

When people talk about the richest person in India, Mukesh Ambani, Adani, Ratan Tata are the most common people they refer to, But Shiv Nadar the billionaire who is considered as the richest tamilan in the world hasn’t received much recognition.

In this article, you will find how Shiv Nadar transformed into an entrepreneur from an employee and how he became the richest tamilan in the world.

Early life

Shiv Nadar was born on 14th July 1945 in Moolaipozhi a small village near Thuthokodi. He completed his studies at PSG college of technology in Coimbatore as an Engineer. In 1967 he joined Walchand groups cooper engineering ltd in Pune and moved on to Delhi cloth mills.

This is the place where his business journey has begun.

Becoming an Entrepreneur

Shiv Nadar didn’t like the corporate work life, doing the same thing for 8 to 9 hours a day in and day doesn’t seem to interest him. As life moved on like this he encountered a situation.

A group of 6 engineers was chatting during their lunchtime about their disinterest in their work-life, eventually, they planned to quit their job and start their own business. One among these 6 engineer is Shiv Nadar. He led the team to quit their job and started their first business “Microcomp ltd”

First Endeavor

Building a computer manufacturing company is the vision of Shiv Nadar but it required a lot of capital resources which they didn’t have at the initial time. So their first company was involved in selling Tele-digital calculators. They saved around 2 lakhs by selling this product and started their dream company “HCL” in 1976

Luck or Vision

During the year 1977, Indian industry minister George Fernandez had issued many regulations against foreign companies. Due to this regulation, many foreign companies left the nation, some of the notable companies include IBM and Coco-Cola.

This created a gap in the Indian computer industries which the HCL has taken advantage of and became the largest manufacturer in India. During the same time, India has given a lot of incentives for Indian businesses. HCL has also benefited from this.

These two incidents played a crucial role in the success of HCL. This could be because of Luck or the vision of the founder, we might never know.

The birth of a Billionaire

From there HCL had massive success in everything they did. The company and the net worth of the founder Shiv Nadar kept on increasing like inflation. In the year 1999 HCL became a public company by issuing its stock on the Indian stock exchange.

It was a huge success and the company raised around 2800 crores during the IPO. In the year 2022 The net worth of Shiv Nadar was 28.7 billion dollars, in India equivalent it is around 2 lakh crore.

Shiv Nadar left the chairman position of HCL in the year 2020 and his daughter Roshni Nadar took over him as chairman.

Not just a Billionaire

Shiv Nadar follows the practice of philanthropy and has donated 10% of his salary all the time to charity. To till day, he has donated over 7000 crores. To honor this Indian government has awarded him with Padma Bhusan in the year 2008.

This is how Shiv Nadar moved from a Middle-class employee to a billionaire Entrepreneur.