G.D. Birla was an outstanding architect of India's industrial growth. The founding father of the Birla empire, he also established the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). He migrated to Calcutta at the age of 16 and started a career as a jute broker along with his brothers. It wasn't long before his hard work paid rich dividends and in 1919 he set up Birla Brothers Limited and thereafter a mill in Gwalior. He established a cotton mill in Sabzi Mandi, Delhi followed by Keshoram Cotton Mills and Birla Jute Mills around 1920. By 1939, Birla Brothers were India's 13th largest managing-agency firm. The expansion was almost an unstoppable phenomenon with Ghanshyam Das and in the decade of the 1930s, he set up Sugar and Paper mills, and in the 1940s ventured into the automobiles, insurance, and air service industries. Post-Independence, he set up an aluminum plant 'Hindalco' near Mirzapur, and the coming decades continued to see the Birla Brothers among the top industrial houses of India.
Termed the 'Merchant Prince' by Mahatma Gandhi, Jamnalal Bajaj was an ardent patriot and a budding entrepreneur, who contributed both to the freedom movement and industrial development of India. Born to a Marwari family in Rajasthan in 1889, he was adopted by a business family in Wardha, and inherited the responsibilities and the reins of the family business at the age of 17, transforming it into one of the largest conglomerates of India, known as the 'Bajaj Group'. He was a staunch follower of the principles of Mahatma Gandhi and was an active part of the freedom struggle movements like the Non-Cooperation Movement (1920-22), Nagpur Jhanda (Flag) Satyagraha (1923), Boycott of Simon Commission (1928), Dandi March (1930), among other events. As a social reformer, he opened the doors of his family-owned temple to the Harijans (untouchables) and also established Mahila Ashram at Wardha & Mahila Shiksha Sadan in Ajmer encouraging women empowerment. Many institutions were set up in the legacy of Jamnalal Bajaj, including the prestigious Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies.
Regarded as the 'Creative Genius' by the late President of India, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Seth Walchand Hirachand Doshi is remembered as a visionary who laid down the foundation of industrialization in India. He is credited for his immense contributions to establishing ventures in the fields of civil engineering, aircraft manufacturing, maritime shipping, and automobile manufacturing, which were then nationalized by the government. He never had an interest in carrying out the traditional family business of the cotton trade and started his career as a railway contractor. He founded the Scindia Steam Navigation Company, establishing the first national shipping industry of India, which sailed its first ship SS Loyalty from Mumbai to London on April 5, 1919. Analyzing the role of ship-building in the infrastructure development of India, he took the initiative of building a shipyard in Vishakhapatnam in 1948. This shipyard was then nationalized by the government of India and was renamed Hindustan Shipyard Limited. Another major contribution by Seth Walchand was the setting-up of India's first aircraft manufacturing facility 'Hindustan Aircraft Limited', renamed HAL in the later period. Follower of nationalist leaders like Dadabhai Navroji, Justice M.G. Ranade, Rao Bahadur G.V. Joshi, and R.C. Dutt, Walchand always dreamt of shaping the future of India and gave all the efforts and dedication to bringing those dreams to reality.