BW Businessworld’s ‘Inheritors’ issue examines the next chapter of Indian family business

BW Businessworld has released its latest issue, ‘Inheritors’, examining the next generation of India’s business families through the businesses they are building, the capital they are committing and the decisions for which they are becoming accountable.

This edition’s editorial package explores how a new generation of business leaders is establishing its own record within some of the country’s most influential enterprises. The issue looks beyond family names and inherited wealth to examine the mandates, choices and commercial challenges shaping the next chapter of Indian family businesses.

A Defining Moment

The issue arrives against the backdrop of a substantial transfer of wealth and responsibility. Its opening essay draws on the UBS Billionaire Ambitions Report 2025, which estimates that Indian billionaire heirs will inherit $382.4 billion by 2040.

The scale of this transition extends well beyond assets changing hands. Succession also involves the transfer of authority over investment, employment, strategy and institutions whose influence reaches across the Indian economy.

As younger family members assume greater responsibility, the issue examines how they are approaching businesses built by previous generations and how they are responding to changing markets, technology and new opportunities.

The Founder’s Mindset

At the centre of Inheritors is the question of what it means for the next generation to adopt a founder’s mindset. The ability to identify opportunities, build new capabilities and commit resources to businesses whose outcomes remain uncertain is increasingly becoming part of the successor’s mandate. The issue explores how an inherited platform, whether in the form of capital, distribution networks, established brands or institutional knowledge, can provide a foundation for fresh entrepreneurial ambition.

However, access to these advantages does not eliminate the need for execution, accountability and commercial discipline. The issue examines how successors are navigating the gap between having the opportunity to build and demonstrating the ability to create sustainable value.

From Inheritance To Accountability

This issue features leaders at different stages of their journeys. Some have created ventures of their own, while others are developing new businesses within established groups or taking responsibility for existing operations.

The issue features leaders at different stages of the succession journey, including Aryaman Vikram Birla and Ananya Birla of the Aditya Birla Group, Jai Bajaj of Bajaj Capital and Priya Agarwal Hebbar of Hindustan Zinc, who are shaping their own leadership records and growth agendas. Anant Goenka of RPG Group brings the perspective of a more seasoned next-generation leader, drawing on an established operating track record. The package also features Schauna Chauhan and Nadia Chauhan of Parle Agro, established inheritors whose perspectives extend from building the business to preparing future leaders.

Across these paths, the coverage examines their actual mandates, the division of authority between family members, boards and professional management, and the commercial tests that lie ahead.

The focus is consequently not simply on who is next in line, but on how the next generation is earning credibility through decisions, execution and business performance.

Dr Annurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, BW Businessworld and Founder, exchange4media Group, argues the challenge of creating successive engines of growth within family enterprises in this issue. His perspective places capital allocation and execution at the heart of the discussion, exploring how entrepreneurial conviction must be accompanied by the discipline to assess outcomes and respond when a business bet disappoints.

“Indian business will benefit from inheritors who can recognise what deserves continuity and what requires change. The most consequential part of their inheritance may be the opportunity to build something that strengthens the enterprise long after their own tenure ends too,” said Dr Batra.

The issue considers this balance as increasingly important for family businesses seeking to expand beyond their traditional categories while protecting the strength of their existing enterprises.

The Weight Of Inheritance

In her opening essay, ‘The Weight of Inheritance’, Noor Fathima Warsia, Group Editorial Director, BW Businessworld examines the distinction between inherited wealth, participation in a family business and the credibility required to lead it.

The essay establishes a central distinction running through the package, including inheriting wealth, entering a family business and earning leadership credibility are separate milestones.

The perspective shifts the conversation around succession from entitlement to responsibility, focusing on the decisions that successors make once they move from being beneficiaries of a legacy to being accountable for its future.

“The next chapter of Indian business will depend significantly on how its family enterprises renew themselves. This issue brings together leaders at different stages, from those assuming wider authority to established inheritors preparing the generation after them. They have the resources to attempt businesses their predecessors could scarcely have imagined. Yet technology and changing consumer expectations are also challenging the advantages on which their family enterprises were built. They must back new opportunities while keeping existing businesses competitive and retaining the confidence of employees, professional managers and investors. Their choices will influence where capital flows and how industries develop. That is what makes this an important moment to examine what they are building and how they are earning the authority to lead,” Warsia said.

The issue’s Last Word features Ameera Shah of Metropolis Healthcare, whose journey from a family pathology practice to a major diagnostics enterprise illustrates how an inheritor can bring a founder’s mindset to building a business and establish an entrepreneurial identity of her own.

The issue also looks at the practical structures required to ensure that family wealth and businesses remain sustainable across generations.

The Business Case For Reinvention

Across the issue, Inheritors explores a common challenge facing India’s business families: determining what deserves continuity and what requires change.

Established businesses provide successors with advantages that can accelerate experimentation and expansion. At the same time, inherited structures can create expectations around familiar businesses, markets and strategies.

The next generation needs to, therefore, navigate both sides of the inheritance - preserving the capabilities and institutions that created value while having the conviction to invest in new categories, technologies and business models.

For India’s family businesses, succession is ultimately not just about who receives control, but what they do with it. The most consequential measure of inheritance may lie in the businesses successors build, the capital they deploy, the decisions they take and the value they create for the generations that follow.

The 'Inheritors' issue of BW Businessworld is now available in both digital and print formats. Read BW Businessworld’s latest digital edition here for more insights and the full stories.

BW Businessworld, with a 45-year legacy, is India’s fastest-growing 360-degree business media house. With a network spanning 23 niche business communities and 10 magazines, BW Businessworld is proud to be entrenched in various domestic and global verticals that organise conferences and forums to facilitate interaction between sectoral business leaders and create a conducive environment for collaboration. All BW issues are also digitally covered, including online and video stories, and eMagazine is available for every issue.