The UK-based Indian Industrialist Lakshmi Niwas Mittal was born on June 15, 1950. Hailing from the Churu district of Rajasthan, India, Lakshmi Mittal now maintains his residence in Kensington, London. The billionaire industrialist is the renowned founder of the Mittal Steel Company.
In addition to being a steel baron, Lakshmi Mittal also serves as a non-executive director of EADS, Goldman Sachs, and ICICI Bank. His personal wealth of US$19.3 billion has made him the richest man in UK and the 8th richest person in the world as of 2009.
He received his Bachelor of Commerce degree from St. Xavier’s College in Calcutta. A few years after his graduation, Lakshmi Mittal married Usha Mittal, who soon gave him a son and daughter. He started his 30 year-experience in the steel industry by working in the family’s steelmaking business in India. Eventually, in 1976, he successfully built his own company, Mittal Steel, formerly known as the LNM Group. Since then, Lakshmi Mittal slowly developed his business until it became an international steel producer with operations scattered in 14 countries.
By pioneering the use of DRI (or Direct Reduced Iron) as an alternative for steelmaking, Lakshmi Mittal led the global industry’s consolidation process. With profits of more than $22 billion and shipments of 42.1 million tons of steel, Mittal Steel stands as the largest steelmaker worldwide.
In 1996, Lakshmi Mittal was hailed by New Steel as “Steelmaker of the Year”. Due to his outstanding vision, leadership, entrepreneurship, and success in the international steel development arena, he became the recipient of the “Willy Korf Steel Vision Award” from the Paine Weber’s World Steel Dynamics and the American Metal Market in 1998. In addition to these honors, Lakshmi Mittal was also hailed by Fortune Magazine as the “European Businessman of the Year” in 2004.
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