Who is Anand Mahindra?

Anand Mahindra, born on 1 May 1955 in Mumbai, is the chairman of Mahindra & Mahindra and of Tech Mahindra. He became chairman of the Mahindra Group in 2012, succeeding his uncle Keshub Mahindra, and has been non-executive chairman since November 2021.

How did Anand Mahindra start his career?

After a film degree from Harvard College (1977) and an MBA from Harvard Business School (1981), he joined Mahindra Ugine Steel in 1981 as an executive assistant to the finance director. He moved to Mahindra & Mahindra as deputy managing director in 1991.

Where is Anand Mahindra from?

He was born in Bombay (now Mumbai). His grandfather J.C. Mahindra, who co-founded the business in 1945, came from Ludhiana in Punjab.

What is Anand Mahindra's education?

He studied at the Lawrence School, Lovedale, then took an AB in film studies at Harvard College in 1977, magna cum laude, and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1981.

What is the FIR against Anand Mahindra?

In September 2023 Kanpur police registered an FIR, on a court direction, naming Anand Mahindra and 12 others after a father alleged that airbags failed in a 2022 Scorpio crash that killed his son. Mahindra denied any defect, and no outcome had been reported as of October 2026.

Did Anand Mahindra invest in Kotak Mahindra Bank?

Yes. In 1986 he personally invested in Uday Kotak's finance company, which took the name Kotak Mahindra Finance and later became Kotak Mahindra Bank. He stopped being a promoter of the bank in 2009.

Who will succeed Anand Mahindra?

Day-to-day leadership passed to professional managers: Anish Shah has been managing director and CEO since April 2021, with a term to March 2030. No family successor has been named.

Anand Mahindra Biography: From Film School to Mahindra

Q: What is Anand Mahindra's net worth in 2026?

Forbes estimated it at about US$3.4 billion on 12 October 2026 and ranked him 81st on its 2026 India list at US$3.65 billion. Hurun put "Anand Mahindra & family" at Rs 51,930 crore in its 2025 list.

Key facts
Born	1 May 1955, Bombay (now Mumbai) [105][2]
Family roots	Third generation of the Mahindra family. His grandfather J.C. Mahindra, from Ludhiana, co-founded the firm in 1945 [9][106]
Education	Lawrence School, Lovedale; AB in film studies, Harvard College, 1977 (magna cum laude); MBA, Harvard Business School, 1981 [105][26][18]
Family	Son of Harish Mahindra, founding chairman of Mahindra Ugine Steel, and the author Indira Mahindra; married to Anuradha Mahindra, founder-editor of Verve [29][104][107]
Company/Group	Chairman, Mahindra & Mahindra (non-executive since November 2021); chairman of Tech Mahindra. The group has 3.27 lakh+ employees in 100+ countries [2][1]
Wealth	About US$3.4 billion (Forbes real-time estimate, 12 October 2026); No. 81 on Forbes India’s 2026 rich list at US$3.65 billion. Hurun’s 2025 list put “Anand Mahindra & family” at Rs 51,930 crore (No. 45) [98][99][100][101]
Known for	The Scorpio, the Satyam rescue, making Mahindra the world’s largest tractor maker by volume, the “Rise” philosophy, Project Nanhi Kali, a huge following on X; Padma Bhushan, 2020 [21][42][1][14][85][87]

On a Diwali evening in 1991, a 36-year-old deputy managing director sat in his office at Mahindra & Mahindra’s Kandivali factory in Mumbai, surrounded by angry workers. Anand Mahindra had told the unions there would be no Diwali bonus unless productivity went up. The workers, Business Today reported years later, were “baying for his blood.” The stand-off lasted nearly four hours. [32]

He did not give in. The workers calmed down and agreed to raise output. At the company’s Igatpuri engine plant, about 1,230 workers had been capping production at 70 engines a day, a pace that left them time to play cards. Three years later, roughly half as many people were making 125 engines a day. “Productivity gains ranged from 50 to 150 per cent,” the group’s finance chief Bharat Doshi recalled. [32]

“When you have stared down the abyss,” Mahindra said afterwards, “you get a sort of confidence.” [32]

That confidence would carry him through a remarkable run: an SUV built from scratch by a team of young engineers, the rescue of a fraud-hit software company, the world’s largest tractor business by volume, and an electric-car business that global investors valued at up to about Rs 80,600 crore. [21][42][1][16] It is also a story with real failures in it: a Korean carmaker that cost Mahindra thousands of crores, two broken partnerships with Ford, and a list of foreign bets that were quietly shut. Few Indian business leaders are as visible as Anand Mahindra, with millions of followers on X. Fewer people know how much of his career was spent fixing things that went wrong.

Where it began

The Mahindra story starts not with cars but with steel. On 2 October 1945, two brothers, J.C. (Jagdish Chandra) Mahindra and K.C. (Kailash Chandra) Mahindra, set up a steel trading company with their friend Malik Ghulam Mohammed. They called it Mahindra & Mohammed. [9] “In 1945, my grandfather and granduncle started a steel trading company with a friend,” Anand Mahindra told McKinsey in 2026. [30]

J.C. Mahindra, Anand’s grandfather, came from Ludhiana. Before going into business he had spent years at Tata Steel as a senior sales manager. [106] After Partition in 1947, Ghulam Mohammed left for Pakistan, where he became its first finance minister and later its Governor-General. [106] The firm became Mahindra & Mahindra. In 1949 it assembled 75 Jeeps at Mazagaon in Bombay, the beginning of the business that would define the family name. [9] M&M listed on the stock exchange in the mid-1950s, and in 1962 it formed Mahindra Ugine Steel Company (MUSCO) with a French partner. [9]

Anand Gopal Mahindra was born in Bombay on 1 May 1955. [105] His father, Harish Mahindra, was a Harvard College graduate and the founding chairman of MUSCO. [29] His mother, Indira Mahindra, was a writer who published novels including The Rebellious Home Makers (1980) and The Club (1984); she had taught history and, with her husband, ran a coffee estate in Coorg. [104][18] His uncle, Keshub Mahindra, a Wharton graduate, became chairman of M&M in 1963 and would hold the post for almost half a century. [9][94]

It was a privileged start, and he knew it. “When I was young, I hated people saying that I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth,” he said in 2026. [30] He went to the Lawrence School in Lovedale, in the Nilgiris. [105] By his own account, he began studying architecture in Bombay before a long college strike. [31]

The film student

Then he made an unusual choice for the heir to an engineering business. He went to Harvard College in 1973, the same year as Bill Gates, to study the liberal arts. [38][27] Harvard Magazine reported that when the Indian government would not fund his studies, Harvard gave him a full scholarship. [27] He studied film in the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies. [26]

He took a semester off in 1975 and photographed Bombay. Decades later he posted those photographs online and wrote: “India is indeed timeless, I guess, in a not always flattering way.” [37] For his thesis film he went to the Kumbh Mela at Allahabad in 1977. “It was a seminal experience that made me understand that being Indian was being part of a universal confluence,” he said. [37] He has said the film won the school’s top award. [31]

He graduated in 1977 magna cum laude. [26][28] The degree mattered to him for a personal reason. “I had succeeded at something where my father couldn’t help me,” he told McKinsey. And: “Film school taught me to see patterns - to tell stories and to empathize with characters.” [30]

He did not become a film-maker. After about a year working at group sites, during which colleagues remember him taking the train to the Kandivli plant like everyone else, he went back to Harvard for an MBA, which he completed in 1981. [33][18]

The first break

Learning the trade at MUSCO

In 1981 Anand Mahindra joined Mahindra Ugine Steel as executive assistant to the finance director. [33][7] It was not a glamorous posting. The government had issued a wave of licences to make alloy steel, competition had multiplied, and MUSCO’s margins were under pressure. Outlook Business records that at one crisis meeting he asked managers whether they had thought about maximising contribution by cutting costs, and few understood the question. He went on to lead a gradual turnaround by clearing MUSCO’s inventory and tightening its supply chain. [33]

He joined the M&M board on 23 November 1989 and, the same year, became president and deputy managing director of MUSCO. [7][2] There he started the group’s moves into real estate and hospitality, the seeds of what became Mahindra Lifespaces and Club Mahindra. [105]

The Kotak bet

His most famous early investment was not in a factory. In the mid-1980s a young Mumbai financier named Uday Kotak was discounting bills for MUSCO, where Mahindra was a general manager. [34][35] Mahindra believed India’s financial services revolution was just beginning and offered to back him. In 1986 he invested personally, his father Harish became chairman, and the firm took the name Kotak Mahindra Finance. [34][35] Accounts of how much he put in differ, from “a couple of lakh” to “four or five lakh” rupees; the company’s total starting capital was about Rs 30 lakh. [35][34] Kotak later said the Mahindra name gave the young firm instant credibility. [35]

That firm became Kotak Mahindra Bank. In June 2009, at his own request, Anand Mahindra stopped being classified as a promoter so the bank could meet its licence conditions; his family then held 3.68%. [36] The full story of that company is told in our Uday Kotak biography.

1991: into the fire

On 4 April 1991, a few months before India opened its economy, Anand Mahindra became deputy managing director of Mahindra & Mahindra, in charge of the plants, labour relations and R&D. [105][33] The company he walked into was not built for competition. In 1992-93, Outlook Business noted, M&M made about 35,000 tractors and 38,000 vehicles with some 17,000 people. Maruti made about 1,22,000 vehicles with 4,000. [33]

That gap is the background to the Diwali confrontation. Accounts differ on the exact year: Business Today places it in 1991, Outlook Business around 1992-93. [32][33] Either way, the result was the productivity deal at Igatpuri and a new authority for the young executive. He also faced decisions about people. In 2008 the company said that after he joined M&M he dismissed senior executives who had broken the group’s values, which he described as the most agonising period of his career. [18]

He later admitted those years left little room for big ideas. “I thought I didn’t have time for vision during the first years of ‘hard yards’ after I came to the company in 1991,” he said. [30]

Building the empire

Saying no to the consultants

In the early 1990s, McKinsey advised M&M to get out of the automotive business and focus on tractors, Outlook Business reported. The auto team pushed back and Mahindra sided with them. [33] In 1994 the group launched a re-engineering programme, known internally as “Badlo Purane Raaste” (change the old ways), and regrouped its sprawl into six businesses. [33]

The same year, the company was negotiating with Ford. In October 1995 Mahindra Ford India was formed as a 50:50 joint venture to make the Ford Escort. [58] Ford wanted Mahindra mainly for manufacturing. Mahindra told the Americans, “India isn’t a sweatshop for hands, it’s a sweatshop for brains.” [33] In 1998 Ford took 72% of the venture, and Mahindra sold its remaining stake in 2005. [58] Mahindra has said the experience was useful: the roughly 300 people who assembled the Escort were the first to work on the Scorpio. [32]

The Scorpio gamble

The Scorpio was the bet that made his name. By 1997 M&M had put a home-grown modern SUV, Project Scorpio, on the drawing board instead of licensing someone else’s design. [21] In 1997 Mahindra put the choice to the board: “We have two routes before us.” He preferred the harder one. [33] At the time M&M’s revenue was about Rs 4,000 crore and its profit about Rs 250 crore. [33]

The project was led by Pawan Goenka, whom Mahindra had invited in 1993 to head M&M’s R&D, with a team of about 120 engineers whose average age was 27. [21][40] Instead of handing suppliers drawings to copy, Mahindra asked first-time suppliers to design whole systems. The company puts the design and development cost at Rs 550 crore; other reports put the total at about Rs 600 crore including plant work. [21][40]

The Scorpio was launched on 20 June 2002 at an introductory price of Rs 5.5 lakh. [40] It sold about 12,000 units in its first year and became one of India’s most recognised vehicle names. [33] It also gave the company a template it would repeat: design in India, at a fraction of global costs.

The titles

Anand Mahindra became managing director of M&M in April 1997. [9][7] The company’s FY2020 annual report says he became vice chairman in January 2001; some company press releases give 2003. [7][13] In 2003 he was also president of the Confederation of Indian Industry. [105]

On 8 August 2012 he became chairman and managing director, succeeding his uncle Keshub, who had led the company since 1963. The group was then worth about US$15.4 billion in revenue, with about 1,44,000 employees. [13][39] “It is gratifying to be able to hand over to the next generation at a time when the company’s performance is at its best,” Keshub Mahindra said. [39]

Tech Mahindra and the Satyam rescue

The group’s software arm began in 1986 as Mahindra British Telecom, a joint venture with BT. [22] It was renamed Tech Mahindra and listed in August 2006. [22]

Its defining moment came in 2009. In January that year, Satyam Computer Services’ founder B. Ramalinga Raju confessed to a fraud that had inflated the company’s books. The government appointed a new board and auctioned control. On 13 April 2009, a Tech Mahindra subsidiary won with a bid of Rs 58 a share, against Rs 45.90 from Larsen & Toubro. [42][41] The 31% preferential stake cost about Rs 1,756 crore; with the open offer the total outlay for 51% was put at about Rs 2,889 crore. [42]

It was a big risk. Satyam’s clients and staff were leaving, and its legal liabilities were unknown. Mahindra Satyam merged into Tech Mahindra in June 2013, creating a company with about US$2.7 billion in revenue; BT sold out in stages. [105][22]

Tractors: the world’s largest by volume

Farm machinery is the quieter engine of the group. Mahindra made its first tractor in 1963, in a venture with International Harvester. It passed 1 million tractors in 2004, 2 million in 2013 and 3 million in 2019, and has called itself the world’s highest-selling tractor brand by volume since 2009. [17][1]

The big domestic deal came in May 2007, when M&M bought 43.3% of Punjab Tractors, maker of the Swaraj brand, for a little over Rs 950 crore. [44] An open offer to other shareholders followed. [44] Abroad, the group bought into tractor makers in China, Japan, Finland and Turkey. Several of those were later sold or wound down. [1][4]

In FY26 Mahindra sold 5,26,403 tractors, its first year above five lakh, with a domestic market share of 43.6%. [5]

Buying abroad

The 2010s were the decade of foreign deals:

Reva (2010): M&M took 55.2% of the Bengaluru electric-car pioneer, which became Mahindra Reva and later Mahindra Electric. [46]
SsangYong (2011): M&M completed the purchase of a 70% stake in the South Korean SUV maker for US$463 million (about Rs 2,105 crore) in March 2011. [43]
Peugeot Motocycles (2014): a 51% stake in the French scooter maker, raised to 100% in 2019. [60]
Pininfarina (2015): Tech Mahindra and M&M agreed to buy 76.06% of the Italian design house, in a deal valued at about EUR 168 million. [45]

The group also co-founded a Formula E racing team in 2014 and revived the Jawa motorcycle brand in 2018 through Classic Legends, in which it holds 60%. [105][1]

“Rise”

On 17 January 2011, Mahindra unveiled a single brand idea for a sprawling group: “Rise”, built on three ideas: accepting no limits, alternative thinking and driving positive change. At the time the group had about US$7.1 billion in revenue and over one lakh employees. [14] He has since described Rise less as a slogan than a filter: “Purpose is not a marketing device; it’s a lens for decision-making.” And: “For me, Rise isn’t about Mahindra rising - it’s about enabling others to rise.” [30]

The SUV comeback and the electric bet

The early 2020s were the best years of the group’s auto business. A new Thar arrived in 2020 and the XUV700 in 2021; by mid-2022 the two had tens of thousands of open bookings, and the Scorpio-N took 1,00,000 bookings in 30 minutes in July 2022. [49]

The electric push came next. In July 2022 Britain’s development-finance arm, British International Investment, agreed to put up to Rs 1,925 crore into a new Mahindra EV company at a valuation of up to Rs 70,070 crore. [15] In August 2023 Singapore’s Temasek agreed to invest Rs 1,200 crore at a valuation of up to Rs 80,580 crore. [16] On 26 November 2024 Mahindra unveiled the BE 6 and XEV 9e, the first cars on its own electric platform, priced from Rs 18.90 lakh and Rs 21.90 lakh. [47] By FY26 the company said it led India’s electric-SUV market by revenue share. [1]

In 2025 it bought 58.96% of the truck and bus maker SML Isuzu for Rs 555 crore and renamed it SML Mahindra. [48][1]

The numbers today

In FY26 Mahindra & Mahindra reported consolidated revenue of Rs 1,98,639 crore and net profit of Rs 17,099 crore. [5] In the April-June 2026 quarter, revenue was Rs 58,188 crore and profit Rs 5,455 crore. [97] The group says it employs more than 3.27 lakh people in over 100 countries, with a combined turnover of about Rs 2.6 lakh crore including Tech Mahindra. [1] In 2026 the group was ranked 44th on TIME’s list of the World’s Best Companies. [1]

The share price has been less kind lately. On 7 October 2026, M&M’s stock hit a 52-week low, about 27% below its January high, after weak September tractor sales, a below-normal monsoon and an RBI rate increase. [103] (For the rate decision, see our explainer on the RBI’s October 2026 repo rate hike.)

How the wealth is held

Unlike many founders on India’s rich lists, Anand Mahindra owns only a small slice of his company directly. M&M’s 2025-26 annual report shows he personally holds 14,30,008 shares, or 0.11%. [2] The promoter group as a whole held 18.14% of the company’s capital on 31 March 2026. [1]

The main family vehicle is Prudential Management & Services, which held about 10.6% of M&M in March 2025. [6] Its beneficial owners include Anand and Anuradha Mahindra and members of Keshub Mahindra’s branch of the family; the filing notes that half of it is held through the Anand Mahindra Family Trust and Mahindra Family Trust-I. [6] A further 6.8% sits with the M&M Benefit Trust, which is classed as promoter group but is not family money. [6] Forbes says his other assets include holdings in Tech Mahindra and Kotak Mahindra Bank and US property held through a family office. [98]

That explains why estimates of his wealth vary. Forbes put it at about US$3.4 billion on 12 October 2026 and ranked him 81st on its 2026 India list at US$3.65 billion. [98][99] Hurun, which reports a figure for him and his family, placed “Anand Mahindra & family” 45th on its 2025 list at Rs 51,930 crore. [100][101] Published coverage of the M3M Hurun India Rich List 2026 that we reviewed did not report his figure. [102]

The setbacks and failures

Anand Mahindra likes to say: “I may take risks, but I’ll never bet the company.” [30] Some of his risks did not pay off.

SsangYong: the expensive lesson

SsangYong never became the global platform Mahindra hoped for. By 2020 it was losing money heavily; Anish Shah told investors in January 2021 that M&M had been “incurring close to 600 crores of losses every quarter on SsangYong.” [20] In April 2020 the M&M board decided not to put in more equity. [51]

The write-downs pushed M&M to a consolidated loss of Rs 3,255 crore in the January-March 2020 quarter, its first quarterly loss in about 19 years. [50] On 21 December 2020 SsangYong applied to a Seoul court for rehabilitation. [19] “We will not be funding SsangYong anymore,” Shah said. [20] A planned sale to Edison Motors collapsed in March 2022 when the buyer failed to pay. [52] The court then approved a takeover by KG Group, and M&M’s 74.65% stake was cut to a single-digit holding. [53][54] M&M had booked a one-time hit of about Rs 1,210 crore on the exit. [55]

Ford, twice

In October 2019 Mahindra and Ford announced a second joint venture, in which M&M would own 51% and take over most of Ford’s India business. On 31 December 2020 the deal was called off, with both sides citing changes in global conditions caused by the pandemic. [56][57] It was the second Ford partnership that had not worked out.

The clean-up

In June 2020, under Anish Shah, then deputy managing director, M&M tightened its capital-allocation rules and promised to act “decisively on all loss making subsidiaries.” [51] The list of exits that followed is long:

GenZe, the US e-scooter business, was shut. [51]
Mahindra Automotive North America had cut more than half its workforce by early 2021, after a US trade ruling halted sales of its off-road ROXOR. [59]
Peugeot Motocycles: control was sold to the German investor Mutares in 2022-23. [60]
Mahindra Aerospace Australia, the light-aircraft business bought in 2009, wound down and ceased to be a subsidiary. [1]
Two-wheelers: Mahindra, which bought Kinetic’s motorcycle assets in 2008, quit the mass-market two-wheeler business in 2017 with a market share of 0.09%. [61]
The e2o: the Reva-derived electric hatchback stopped production for India in 2019. [62]

The clean-up worked. Within a few years the group’s foreign losses had shrunk, its SUV business was booming, and the electric unit was raising money at five-figure crore valuations. [55][15]

The pandemic

On 22 March 2020, as India moved towards lockdown, Mahindra offered the group’s resorts “as temporary care facilities,” said its factories would start work on making ventilators, and pledged 100% of his salary to a fund for small businesses and the self-employed. [82]

Controversies and allegations

We found no court or regulator finding of personal wrongdoing against Anand Mahindra, and no short-seller report or SEBI governance order against the group. The matters below are the significant legal and regulatory episodes involving him or group companies, with what is known about each as of 13 October 2026.

The Kanpur Scorpio airbag case (2023)

Allegation: On 14 January 2022, Dr Apoorv Mishra died when the Scorpio he was driving hit a divider in fog near Kanpur and overturned. His father, Rajesh Mishra, alleged that Mahindra had given “false assurances” about safety, that the airbags did not deploy, and that dealer staff mistreated him. In September 2023, on a court direction, police at Raipurwa in Kanpur registered an FIR naming Anand Mahindra and 12 others, including company directors, staff and the dealer. [63][65]

Response: Mahindra said the vehicle, a 2020 Scorpio S9, was fitted with airbags, that its investigation found no fault, and that frontal airbags are not designed to deploy when a vehicle rolls over. “The matter is currently sub judice and we are committed to cooperating with the authorities,” the company said, offering condolences to the family. [64][63]

Status: We found no public report of a chargesheet, closure report or court ruling as of October 2026. It remains an allegation.

Jeep v Mahindra: the ROXOR case (2018-2023)

Allegation: In 2018 Fiat Chrysler, owner of Jeep, accused Mahindra of copying the Jeep’s distinctive look with its ROXOR off-road vehicle sold in the US. [66]

Response: Mahindra said the claims lacked merit, pointing to a 2009 design agreement with Fiat, and redesigned the vehicle. [66]

What happened next:

In June 2020 the US International Trade Commission found that the original ROXOR infringed Jeep’s trade dress and barred its import and sale. [66][59]
In December 2020 the ITC ruled that the redesigned 2021 ROXOR did not infringe. [67]
On 9 March 2022 the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed both ITC rulings. [24]
In July 2023 a Michigan federal court held that the redesign was “drastically different,” allowing Mahindra to keep selling it. [66][67]

Status: Resolved. Mahindra lost on the original design and won on the redesign.

The CCI spare-parts penalty (2014)

Allegation: In August 2014 the Competition Commission of India fined 14 carmakers a total of Rs 2,545 crore for restricting the sale of spare parts and diagnostic tools to independent garages. M&M’s penalty was Rs 292.25 crore. [68]

Response: The carmakers, including M&M, challenged the order. [68]

Status: The appeals went through the tribunals and the Delhi High Court; we could not confirm the final outcome of M&M’s own penalty.

Satyam’s inherited liabilities (2009 onwards)

Allegation: These were claims against Satyam arising from Ramalinga Raju’s fraud, which happened before the Mahindra takeover. They included a US investor class action, a US SEC case and claims by Upaid Systems. Separately, 37 companies claim that Rs 1,230 crore was advanced to Satyam before the fraud came to light. [69][70][23]

Response: Mahindra Satyam settled the US class action for US$125 million (2011) and paid a US$10 million SEC penalty “without admitting or denying” the charges. [69][70] The Upaid claims were settled for about US$70 million. [71] On the Rs 1,230 crore, Tech Mahindra says the claims “will not sustain” and holds the amount in a suspense account. [23]

Status: The US matters are settled. The Rs 1,230 crore claims were still pending in Indian courts in the most recent Tech Mahindra filings we reviewed.

Mahindra Finance: the Hazaribagh death (2022)

Allegation: In September 2022 a pregnant woman was killed in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, when a third-party recovery agent working for Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services drove over her with a tractor that was being repossessed. [73] On 22 September the RBI barred the company from using outside agents for recovery, citing “material supervisory concerns.” [72]

Response: Anish Shah said the group was “deeply saddened and disturbed” and that “we stand with the family.” The company stopped third-party repossessions. [72]

Status: The RBI lifted the restriction on 4 January 2023. [74] The criminal case against the agent is a separate matter.

Mahindra Finance: the Aizawl loan fraud (2024)

Allegation: In April 2024 Mahindra Finance disclosed a fraud at a north-east branch, where forged KYC documents were used to take out vehicle loans. It delayed its results and estimated the hit at up to about Rs 150 crore. [75][76]

Response: The company said it had commissioned a fact-finding review and that arrests had been made. M&M’s annual report later identified the branch as Aizawl, Mizoram, with 2,887 accounts involved and a net Rs 135.86 crore fully provided for. [8][75]

Status: Provided for in the accounts. We found no regulatory penalty.

The RBL Bank stake (2023)

Allegation: No wrongdoing was alleged, but the move unsettled investors. In July 2023 M&M bought 3.53% of RBL Bank for Rs 417 crore and said it might go up to 9.9%; its shares fell about 6.5% the next day on fears the group wanted a bank. [77]

Response: On 4 August 2023 M&M said it would not invest more “unless we see compelling strategic value.” [78]

Status: Closed. M&M sold its entire stake in November 2025 for Rs 678 crore, a 62.5% gain. [79]

Other matters

Yezdi trademark: Classic Legends, the group’s 60% motorcycle unit, is in a dispute over the Yezdi name. The Supreme Court issued notice on an appeal in April 2026. [80] It is pending.
US disability case: Tech Mahindra’s US arm paid US$255,000 in 2024 to settle a US EEOC lawsuit over a deaf job applicant. [25]
The Tumakuru farmer: In January 2022 a video of a dealership salesman mocking a farmer in Karnataka went viral. Mahindra wrote that the group’s core value was to “uphold the Dignity of the Individual” and that any lapse “will be addressed with great urgency.” [81]

Status of this section: as of 13 October 2026.

Giving back

Girls’ education

In 1996 Anand Mahindra started Project Nanhi Kali (“little bud”) through the K.C. Mahindra Education Trust, a trust his great-uncle founded in 1953. It pays to keep girls from poor families in school. [85][3] M&M’s 2025-26 annual report says it has supported over 9.4 lakh girls in 15 states since it began. [3] It runs with the Naandi Foundation, which Mahindra chairs. [85][10]

Harvard and universities

In October 2010 he gave Harvard US$10 million, and its Humanities Center was renamed the Mahindra Humanities Center in honour of his mother. Harvard called it the largest gift for the humanities in its history. [26] At the opening he said he had returned out of “a deep desire to repay this extraordinary act of liberalism and generosity by this University so many years ago.” [27] In 2014 he received the Harvard Medal, reported as the first Indian to do so. [28]

Closer to home, he is chancellor of Mahindra University in Hyderabad, to which he, his wife and family pledged about Rs 550 crore, according to Business Standard. [86]

The arts

He has backed the arts in ways unusual for an industrialist: the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (from 2006), the Mahindra Blues Festival in Mumbai (from 2011) and the Kabira festival in Varanasi. “Theatre is the source code” of Indian cinema, he has said. [31]

The public persona

Mahindra is one of India’s most-followed business leaders on X: over 7 million followers by 2019, and about 11 million by his own count in 2025. [92][83] He uses it to celebrate ordinary achievers. He gave Thars to six young cricketers who debuted in the 2020-21 series in Australia, calling theirs “true ‘Rise’ stories”. [88] He sent an electric SUV to the parents of chess prodigy R. Praggnanandhaa. [89] He gave a new house to Kamalathal, the Coimbatore grandmother who sold idlis for Rs 1. [90] In June 2022, amid violent protests over the Agnipath scheme, he said the group would welcome the chance to recruit trained Agniveers. [91]

In January 2025, when L&T’s chairman suggested a 90-hour working week, Mahindra disagreed: “Ask me what’s the quality of my work. Don’t ask me how many hours I work.” He added, “My wife is wonderful. I love staring at her.” [83][84]

He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2020. [87]

Succession

Mahindra planned his own handover early. In December 2019 the company announced that he would become non-executive chairman, in line with SEBI rules separating the roles of chairman and managing director. “In my new role, I see myself as the conscience keeper of the Mahindra Group,” he said. [11] After SEBI deferred the rule, he stayed executive chairman until his term ended, and became non-executive chairman in November 2021. [12][2]

Pawan Goenka, the Scorpio’s engineer, retired in April 2021, and Anish Shah, until then deputy managing director and group CFO, became managing director and CEO. [95] Shah’s term was renewed to March 2030. [2] No family member has been named as a successor; the group is run by professional managers, and the family’s role is as owner and chair. [2]

His uncle Keshub Mahindra died on 12 April 2023, aged 99. [94] In March 2024 the family holding company sold a small block of M&M shares, reported as giving Keshub Mahindra’s heirs some liquidity. [93]

Mahindra, now 71, still writes the chairman’s letter and speaks for the group. At the Mahindra University convocation in August 2026 he told graduates: “the best way to honor a great legacy is not simply to preserve it, but to reinvent it.” [96]

What their journey teaches

Being an heir does not excuse you from the shop floor. Mahindra had a famous surname, yet his first job was in a struggling steel unit and his first big test was four hours with angry workers. The authority he earned there, not his surname, made the 1990s reforms possible. [32][33]

Build what you can own. The Ford venture taught M&M to assemble someone else’s car. The Scorpio taught it to design its own. Choosing the harder, costlier route in 1997 gave the company two decades of products and the confidence to build its own electric platform. [33][21][47]

Admit a bad bet and cut it fast. SsangYong, GenZe, Peugeot Motocycles and the Australian aircraft unit were all shut, sold or cut loose once the numbers stopped working. The quick exits freed money for the businesses that were working. [20][51][55]

Back people before they are proven. A personal cheque of a few lakh rupees to a young financier in 1986 became one of India’s great banking stories. The same instinct shows in the young Scorpio team and in Mahindra’s public praise for first-time achievers. [35][40][88]

An unusual education can be an advantage. A film degree looks odd on an industrialist’s CV. He says it taught him “to see patterns - to tell stories and to empathize with characters”, skills that show in the Rise brand and in how he speaks to customers. [30][14]

A profile for general reading, based on public records and reporting as of 13 October 2026. Not investment, tax or legal advice.