India\u2019s next generation of business and political leaders sees the country\u2019s next phase of growth being driven by a combination of entrepreneurship, technology, rising consumption and stronger institutions, but they also believe businesses will need to balance speed with governance and legacy with innovation.<\/p>\n
Across conversations at the Fortune India 40 Under 40 2026 in Mumbai on Wednesday, entrepreneurs, corporate leaders and policymakers highlighted opportunities ranging from consumer spending and renewable energy to artificial intelligence, research, food processing and global expansion.<\/p>\n
The discussions also indicated a broader shift in how the next generation views leadership\u2014with a stress on building institutions, taking long-term bets and creating businesses that can scale beyond their founders.<\/p>\n
From building companies to building institutions<\/p>\n
Sebi chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said India’s growing businesses will need governance frameworks that evolve alongside them.<\/p>\n
\u201cCorporate governance must grow alongside businesses as Indian enterprises scale up,\u201d Pandey said, urging founders and promoter families to make the transition \u201cfrom control to stewardship\u201d.<\/p>\n
He also cautioned entrepreneurs against viewing public markets simply as a source of capital.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing able to raise public capital is not the same as being ready for public capital,\u201d Pandey said, adding that \u201cpublic capital, therefore, comes with public accountability\u201d.<\/p>\n
Technology, he said, must also move higher up the corporate agenda as businesses deal with AI, cybersecurity and data risks.<\/p>\n
\u201cTechnology must therefore be a board priority. It’s no longer merely an operational concern; it’s central to business continuity,\u201d Pandey said.<\/p>\n
Young India sees consumption as a long-term opportunity<\/p>\n
Consumption emerged as one of the strongest themes at the event.<\/p>\n
Aryaman Birla, director at Aditya Birla Group, described the group’s investment in Royal Challengers Bengaluru as a bet on India’s rising consumer and middle-class spending power.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it was really a bet on the fact that the Indian consumer will continue to grow,\u201d Birla said.<\/p>\n
He also identified fashion, jewellery and food services among the consumption categories that could benefit as Indian households move up the value curve.<\/p>\n
For Nykaa’s Anchit Nayar, however, India’s beauty opportunity extends beyond premiumisation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have one of the lowest per capita spends on beauty anywhere in the world,\u201d Nayar said, adding that demand would exist \u201call the way from value to mass to prestige\u201d.<\/p>\n
Nayar, who returned to Nykaa after spending seven to eight years in investment banking at Morgan Stanley, said his role is increasingly focused on scaling established businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have the ability to take things from, say, one plus as opposed to zero to one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Technology, research and new sectors<\/p>\n
Technology and innovation also featured prominently in the discussions.<\/p>\n
Pandey called for greater industry participation in research and development, noting that India’s R&D spending has remained around 0.6%-0.8% of GDP in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour generation has the opportunity to build that capability in India, own intellectual property, and take Indian innovation to the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Andhra Pradesh minister Nara Lokesh similarly called for greater investment in research and emerging sectors, arguing that education could help connect talent and opportunities across countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of money needs to go into research. I believe that that is the need of the hour,\u201d Lokesh said.<\/p>\n
His pitch for Andhra Pradesh’s investment proposition centred on what he called the \u201cthree S’s\u201d \u2014 speed, service and stability.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving a chief minister who can open doors makes my job half easy. And the other half is for me to go into the meeting room and close the door and close the deal,\u201d Lokesh said.<\/p>\n
Building global Indian businesses<\/p>\n
Union minister Chirag Paswan urged young entrepreneurs to move beyond becoming job seekers and focus on creating jobs and globally recognised Indian brands.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should not only be job seekers; we should also be job creators and job providers,\u201d Paswan said.<\/p>\n
He identified food processing as an area where India could build global scale, saying the country has the agricultural base, consumer market and traditional expertise needed to become a global food-processing hub.<\/p>\n
Quality, he said, would be critical to building the broader Brand India.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do we make sure that when you talk about \u2018Made in India\u2019, it comes with the utmost assurance of quality?\u201d Paswan asked.<\/p>\n
The next generation must balance legacy and change<\/p>\n
The challenge for established businesses, meanwhile, will be to combine their existing strengths with new ways of operating.<\/p>\n
At a panel on next-generation leadership, JK Cement’s Madhav Singhania and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas’ Rishabh Shroff highlighted opportunities around consumption, sustainability, AI and India’s global expansion.<\/p>\n
Shroff said Indian companies are increasingly developing international ambitions, creating opportunities for cross-border expansion and professional services.<\/p>\n
At the same time, both leaders pointed to structural challenges including ease of doing business, policy consistency and dispute resolution.<\/p>\n
For JioStar vice-chairman Uday Shankar, the media industry’s biggest challenge is different: monetisation.<\/p>\n
\u201cMedia companies have done a great job of innovating on content, creativity, brand, distribution, everything. But they have been totally legacy-bound in inventing or innovating on monetisation,\u201d Shankar said.<\/p>\n
The common thread across the conversations was therefore not simply growth, but how India’s next generation builds for the long term \u2014 whether that means scaling family businesses, creating new consumer brands, attracting capital, developing technology or strengthening institutions.<\/p>\n
As Pandey put it: \u201cBuild enterprises that create value, build institutions that deserve trust, and set standards that others will want to follow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"India\u2019s next generation of business and political leaders sees the country\u2019s next phase of growth being driven by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[291735,74715,303028,45,49,48,6314,137,204796,303023,93442,141818,303027,11958,303025,303024,92841,303029,303026],"class_list":["post-873011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-40-under-40","tag-ai-innovation","tag-brand-india","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-corporate-governance","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-family-businesses","tag-fortune-india","tag-global-expansion","tag-india-growth","tag-indian-consumption","tag-indian-entrepreneurship","tag-institution-building","tag-next-gen-leaders","tag-public-markets","tag-rd-investment","tag-technology-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}