GM RAO
Group Chairman, GMR Group
GM Rao, a mechanical engineer, is the Founder Chairman of the GMR Group, the global infrastructure company.
Mr. Rao hails from a small town in Andhra Pradesh, India. Before India’s economic liberalization, he explored every business opportunity that came his way. Starting with a single jute mill in 1978, he ventured into 28 different businesses as a serial entrepreneur.
After the economic liberalisation in 1994, his moves became entirely strategy driven. He divested all the unrelated businesses and primarily focused on the core infrastructure sector, resulting in the GMR Group exiting some highly attractive businesses such as banking, insurance, software, breweries, jute and sugar.
Over the last four decades, he has successfully established the GMR Group as one of the most recognized brands in the country. The Group is now a well-diversified and professionally managed infrastructure developer with focus on Airports, Energy, Highways and Urban Infrastructure including SEZs. Though all these business opportunities were new to the Group and to the country, the Group has scaled up quickly and delivered world-class quality assets.
While the business grew rapidly, GM Rao laid strong emphasis on institution building. Much focus was laid on four pillars of institution building – People, Process, Governance and Technology. The GMR Group vision states: “GMR Group will be an institution in perpetuity that will build entrepreneurial organizations making a difference to society through creation of value.” A set of seven core Values and Beliefs was defined to shape the GMR Group’s distinct organizational culture.
Rao believes that “Family must be run like business and business must be run like family.” He also emphasizes that strong family governance ensures strong corporate governance. He has been focusing very early on ESG – Environment, Social and Governance – across all infrastructure assets.
With a strong inclination toward “giving back to society,” he established the GMR Varalakshmi Foundation nearly 30 years ago. The foundation actively works in the areas of education, healthcare, livelihood and community development across more than 20 locations in the country, impacting lakhs of lives every year.
Mr. Rao has been conferred with several awards and recognitions. For his achievements, he insists, “All the credit goes to my GMR colleagues and my family for their understanding, shared vision, hard work and dedication.”