India's Richest 2019: How Ceding Control Paid Off For Billionaire Marico Founder

When billionaire Harsh Mariwala decided to hand over day-to-day control of consumer goods giant Marico,

had a mantra for his role as chairman at the company he founded and ran for 24 years: “Mind On. Hands Off.” “The whole objective is to add value,” says Mariwala, 68. “Not control.”

That decision in 2014 to relinquish management of the Mumbai-based company he created in 1990 (and in which he and his family still own 59%) provided Mariwala with a springboard to return to his roots as an entrepreneur: Mariwala is now focusing on a variety of new business and philanthropic initiatives, including a string of startup investments, a mental health program for India’s underprivileged and a forthcoming book on the lessons of his entrepreneurial journey.

Mariwala started in the business in 1971, when he sacrificed a chance to go abroad to business school to join his father and uncles at Bombay Oil Industries, the trading firm dealing in spices, spice extracts, chemicals and oil that the family started in 1947. In 1990, Mariwala launched Marico to develop and market Bombay Oil’s brands: Parachute, Saffola and edible oil brand Sweekar,

which was sold to U.S. food giant Cargill in 2011. “It took me two to three years to convince the family,” he says. “I assured them that the ownership wouldn’t change but it was more of a management split so that I could take independent decisions.”