Youth Icons and Achievers of 2026 in Business

Aryaman Vikram Birla, 28, Businessman: Pushing Boundaries

He quit as a cricketer at 22, stepping away from a professional career after speaking publicly about anxiety, even though the game had offered a way for him to be Aryaman first, before the weight of the Birla name settled in. When he recently reappeared, it was not at the crease but as the new chairman of Royal Challengers Bengaluru, one of the world’s most successful sport franchises acquired for a record sum by an Aditya Birla Group-led consortium earlier this year. Between those two moments, his centre of gravity shifted to the group, where the seventh-generation scion took on roles along its new edges, including hospitality, venture capital and renewables. Aryaman Birla is not only coming of age in an empire that is actively being reconfigured but he is also part of the force shaping that shift.

Jeet Adani, 28, Businessman: Flying High

Since joining the Adani Group in 2019 after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, his focus has been on the group’s airports business under Adani Airports Holdings Limited, which manages a growing network of Indian airports. It is a domain where visibility is constant but control is dispersed. Yet, Jeet Adani has remained largely out of view. The emphasis has been on function rather than profile, in a group whose growth has drawn sustained attention. Beyond airports, his work extends across group strategy and adjacent businesses, where infrastructure, logistics and digital services intersect.

Anandamayi Bajaj, 22, Businesswoman: Heiress Rising

In 2025, Anandamayi Bajaj joined the Bajaj Group as general manager, group strategy, becoming one of the first women from the family to take on a leadership role in the group founded by Jamnalal Bajaj. The fifth-generation scion graduated from Columbia University with a degree in financial economics and mathematics, and was brought in to work across Bajaj Hindusthan Sugar, Bajaj Consumer Care, Bajaj Energy, and the Bajaj Foundation. An icon of a new corporate inheritance, Anandamayi is someone to watch especially because she represents yet another multibillion-dollar family business, after the Reliance and Birla groups, admitting a woman into its core leadership.

Mrunal Panchal, 27, Entrepreneur: Makeover Mantra

She turned a large social media following—six million at last count—into a consumer brand. The founder of Mrucha Beauty, Mrunal Panchal began as a creator, building an audience through short-form beauty content and even promoting Selena Gomez’s makeup brand Rare Beauty before launching her own products. Mrucha Beauty operates in a crowded direct-to-consumer market, and Panchal’s product drops, shades and packaging are informed by feedback loops that are immediate and visible. Creator-led brands, however, are closely tied to personal identity, and Panchal has had to field everything from allegations of blush blindness to body shaming.

Shashvat Nakrani, 27, Entrepreneur: Paying Smart

In 2018, as UPI was beginning to reshape how money moved in India, Shashvat Nakrani noticed how small merchants were being left to navigate a fragmented payments system on their own. A student at IIT Delhi at the time, he set out to transform that friction into a single QR code, offered at zero cost to the merchant. The proposition travelled quickly, carried by the wider adoption of UPI across India’s retail economy. BharatPe grew into a broader financial services platform, adding lending, card acceptance and credit products for small businesses, and reaching millions of merchants beyond metros. The company’s rise placed Nakrani among the youngest entrants on India’s rich lists, with an estimated net worth of around `1,300 crore in 2025. Nakrani has kept a relatively low public profile, even as BharatPe moved through internal disputes, leadership churn and legal battles. Recently, he has stepped back from day-to-day operations, moving out of the COO role while remaining on the board.

Firoz Mistry, 29 and Zahan Mistry, 25, Businessmen: Destiny’s Children

Sons of the late Cyrus Mistry, former Tata Group chairman, their inheritance is both financial—running into several billion dollars— and historical with the Mistry family’s relationship with the Tatas stretching back decades, formalised through a significant shareholding that has made them the largest minority stakeholders in Tata Sons. Irish citizens who live and work in Mumbai, the Mistry scions have kept a low profile. Last year, Firoz joined the Board of Directors of Afcons Infrastructure Ltd, the flagship infrastructure, engineering and construction company of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group. In the coming years, the Mistry brothers are expected to be involved across the Shapoorji Pallonji Group’s core businesses, including construction, engineering, real estate, infrastructure and energy.

Anirudh Sharma, 27 and Rahul Rawat, 27, Entrepreneurs: Space Patrol

Space is getting crowded. Thousands of satellites now share orbit with debris, much of it untracked, all slowly heading towards collision. Anirudh Sharma and Rahul Rawat built Digantara, with their classmate Tanveer Ahmed, around that problem. Founded in 2018 out of a student project, Digantara focuses on space situational awareness, which involves mapping, tracking and predicting the movement of objects in orbit. The idea is often described as a Google Maps for space. Instead of relying only on ground-based telescopes, the company is building a layered system of sensors capable of tracking objects as small as five centimetres. Digantara’s clients include defence and space agencies across multiple countries. The co-founders have a special place in the Indian startup ecosystem, belonging to a generation of founders building crucial technical systems tied to national capability.

Aadit Palicha, 24 and Kaivalya Vohra, 23, Entrepreneurs: Speed Savvy

They were barely out of their teens when they began. Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra are running a company valued in billions. Both left Stanford University and built Zepto into one of India’s fastest-scaling consumer startups. Founded in 2021, Zepto’s promise of 10-minute grocery delivery now rests on a dense network of urban warehouses. Its valuation, reported between $5 and $7 billion, reflects a market willing to underwrite speed as a product. The model is costly and contested, with rivals like Blinkit and Instamart chasing similar scale, and questions around profitability and labour conditions unresolved. Yet, Palicha and Vohra remain unusually persuasive. Both founders have also appeared among the youngest entrants on India’s rich lists.

Devika Gholap, 28, Entrepreneurs: Scanning Wellness

The microscope has remained largely unchanged for over two centuries. Devika Gholap is trying to replace it. As co-founder of OptraSCAN, she has built scanners and software that turn glass slides into digital images that are shareable, analysable, and no longer bound to a single lab our specialist. OptraSCAN operates across India and global markets, enabling the shift towards digital diagnostics. Its proposition rests not just on speed but on standardisation. Gholap’s case for the business is straightforward: modern medicine runs on data but diagnosis still depends on analog viewing. Her work bridges that gap. In a sector where adoption is slow and the stakes are high, she has built a product for precision and scale.

Rohan Gupta, 27, Businessman: Full Spectrum

Steel is a business for the patient, moving with construction cycles, capital expenditure and the long timelines of infrastructure building. As a son of the Gupta family that owns APL Apollo Tubes, Rohan Gupta comes from that world, but as a next-generation executive, he has, along with his brother Rahul, expanded into finance and other faster-paced sectors. SG Finserve, which the brothers took control of in 2021, has been repositioned as a lending platform. Gupta’s involvement in the group also extends across logistics, energy, and sports. As the founder of SG Sports and Entertainment, he has invested in tennis and hockey and even owns a Global Chess League franchise team.

Aniket Shah, 25, Ujjwal Sukheja, 24 and Saran S, 24, Entrepreneurs: Beating the Clock

Swish is a young entrant in India’s crowded quick-commerce market, where groceries and essentials are delivered in minutes and the difference between promise and failure is measured in seconds. It is also run by young founders, Aniket Shah, Saran S and Ujjwal Sukheja, who have placed their bets not on novelty but on precision. The three founders first worked together at a crypto startup. That experience shows in how they approach the business. Their model rejects the loose coordination of marketplace delivery. Instead, they control the system end-toend— cloud kitchens, tightly defined delivery radii, and a network designed for consistency and speed. At a $140 million valuation, Swish is still small by quick-commerce standards, but its growth suggests that even in a saturated market, tighter execution can still command capital.