The High & Mighty 2023: 50 Power People

Chronicling those whose influence resonates in our personal and professional lives

Left: The sacred ‘Sengol’, symbolizing the transfer of power from the British to India. Right: India Today’s high and mighty list

“For thine is the kingdom,” says the Lord’s Prayer, “power, and glory, forever and ever.” Let’s take an excerpt first: power and glory. This is one possible measure of a person’s achievements in life, but it Only one explores the outer periphery of the inner journey. The 50 people in our high and mighty list were not born on another planet. Nor were they in the three supplementary list on politics, officers and Indians making it big abroad . They are ordinary mortals, and yet extraordinary. Their empires, small and large, were each built by a special blend of insight, will, imagination, tenacity… and sometimes by sheer force of personality. Some of them from obscurity come out where they are. Monica Shergill, The Content Head, Netflix, grew up watching B&W television in Meerut. Nithin and Nikhil Kamath Zerodha has children of a bank employee, Moderate Bengaluru middle class. Narendra Modi’The past is legendary. even Mukesh Ambani have seen life in a Mumbai chawl and Kumar Mangalam Birla After the untimely demise of his father, he had no choice but to grow up fast. Both Mukesh and Kumar Mangalam grew their inherited business manifold. Every individual journey starts from scratch. In Rahul GandhiTalking about it, it started with the Bharat Jodo Yatra last year. Fate traverses a difficult path between flux and certainty. A Gautam Adani Became the second richest man in the world, but then came his toughest challenge. Even billionaires should expect the unexpected. Under a sky recently darkened by war and pestilence, “for ever and ever” is straight imagery. But this is the powernama of the present.

50 High and Mighty Personalities

1. Mukesh Ambani: The Blazing Force

2. Kumar Mangalam Birla: The Empire Builder

3. Ratan Tata: Eminence Gris

4. Sajjan Jindal: Spreading my wings

5. Sunil Bharti Mittal: Telecom tycoon

6. N. Chandrasekaran: Chief Consolidator

7. Gautam Adani: Mr. Resilient

8. Uday Kotak: First among bankers

9. Azim Premji and Rishad Premji: Philanthroper Kings

10. Amitabh Bachchan: The Evergreen Superstar

11. Anil Agarwal: Mine Force

12. Nandan Nilekani: The Integrator

13. Shiv Nadar and Roshni Nadar Malhotra: Clear the Old Block

14. RC Bhargava: In pole position

15. Ajay Piramal: Value Creator

16. Sanjeev Puri: The advantage of moving fast

17. Rahul Bhatia: The High Flyer

18. Nita Ambani: Legend of the Arts

19. Dr. Naresh Trehan: State of the art

20. Adar Poonawalla: Bullet in the Hand

21. Shah Rukh Khan: Badshah is back

22. Anand Mahindra: In cruise control

23. Sanjiv Goenka: Power Player

24. Virat Kohli: Bat Man Forever

25. Baba Ramdev and Acharya Balakrishna: Ayurveda ambassadors

26. Kalanithi Maran: Afternoon

27. Jai Shah: Shah of Cricket

28. Dilip Shanghvi: Sunny Side Up

29. SS Rajamouli: Movie Mogul

30. SN Subrahmanyan: Infra Caesar

31. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw: Her Healing Power

32. Harish Salve: Wise lawyer

33. Nitin Kamath and Nikhil Kamath: On the Bull Run

34. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: The Sage of Peace

35. Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev: The Green Guru

36. Amit Agarwal: E-com specialist

37. Monica Shergill: The queen of content

38. Sushant Sriram and Aparna Purohit: Streaming giants

39. Sameer Jain: Keeping up with the times

40. Deepinder Goyal: Delivery King

41. Deepika Padukone: Global Diva

42. Sudhir Agarwal: Heartland Headliner

43. Mahendra Mohan Gupta and Sanjay Gupta: Nawabs of News

44. Byju Raveendran and Divya Gokulnath: Edtech stars

45. Aditya Chopra: Master Storyteller

46. Pawan Munjal: Remake in India

47. Harmanpreet Kaur: Pitch Perfect

48. Bhavish Aggarwal: Digital rider

49. Alia Bhatt: Box Office Darling

50. Karan Johar: The affable star