India's New Entrepreneurial Classes: The High Growth Economy and Why it is Sustainable

CASI Seminar
Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal
Founder, Chairman, and Group Managing Director, Bharti Enterprises
Penn Club of New York, 30 West 44th Street, New York, NY

Sunil Bharti Mittal is the Founder, Chairman and Group Managing Director of Bharti Enterprises head quartered at New Delhi, India. Bharti Enterprises, India’s leading telecom conglomerate, has been at the forefront of the telecom revolution and has transformed the telecom sector with its world-class services built on leading edge technologies. Bharti is India’s largest mobile service operator and enjoys a national leadership presence in fixed line services, long distance and broadband services. It has to its credit the break-up of the 100 year-old monopolies of state run companies to start the process of making telecom available to a mass consumer base.

Mr. Mittal started his career at 18 after graduating from Punjab University in India and founded Bharti in the year 1976. Today, at 48 he heads among the top 10 enterprises in India, with a market capitalization of over US$ 14 billion employing over 15,000 people. Bharti has grown successfully in partnership with several leading global companies including Singapore telecom, Warburg Pincus, British Telecom, Telecom Italia, Vivendi, and International Finance Corporation. He has chaired several international telecom conferences and is a frequent keynote speaker in India and abroad.

The Nand & Jeet Khemka Distinguished Lecture Series is an endowed public program of the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI). Launched in the 2007-08 academic year, and made possible through the generous support of the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, the series brings renowned India specialists to the Penn community and serves as a critical forum for analyzing and understanding the complex economic, political, social, and cultural changes that the world’s largest democracy is experiencing, as well as the challenges that lie ahead.
The Saluja Global Fellows Program has been made possible by the generous gift from Vishal Saluja ENG’89 W’89. CASI was excited to launch the program during the 2022–23 academic year, coinciding with the Center’s 30th Anniversary. This new program enables CASI to invite eminent leaders and rising experts on contemporary India preferably from the fields of media, culture, law, and contemporary history to be in residence for one to two weeks at CASI.