Who is Sanjiv Goenka?

Sanjiv Goenka is an Indian industrialist and chairman of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka (RPSG) Group, the Kolkata-based conglomerate behind CESC, PCBL Chemical, Firstsource Solutions, Saregama, Spencer's Retail and the IPL team Lucknow Super Giants. He is the younger son of the late industrialist Rama Prasad Goenka.

What is Sanjiv Goenka's net worth in 2026?

Forbes put his real-time net worth at about US$3.5 billion on 28 October 2026. He was ranked No. 80 on Forbes India's 100 Richest list of September 2026, at US$3.7 billion. His fortune has fallen from US$4.9 billion in 2024 as shares of several group companies declined.

Where is Sanjiv Goenka from and how old is he?

He was born on 29 January 1961 in Calcutta (now Kolkata), into a Marwari business family whose roots go back to Dundlod in Rajasthan's Shekhawati region. He turned 65 in January 2026.

How did Sanjiv Goenka start his business career?

After studying at St Xavier's in Kolkata, he worked first in Hyderabad and then ran Dunlop India as deputy managing director. In 1989, aged 28, he bought a block of CESC shares without telling his father, a move that led the family to take over Kolkata's power utility, which became the core of his group.

What is Sanjiv Goenka's education?

He attended St Xavier's Collegiate School, Kolkata (class of 1977) and St Xavier's College, Kolkata, graduating in the 1981 batch. He has no MBA.

What was the Sanjiv Goenka and KL Rahul controversy?

In May 2024 TV cameras showed Goenka in an animated exchange with Lucknow Super Giants captain KL Rahul after a heavy defeat, drawing wide criticism. Goenka hosted Rahul for dinner days later, but LSG did not retain him for 2025; Rahul later said he wanted to play where he could find 'some freedom'.

What are the RPSG Group's electoral bond donations?

Election Commission data released in March 2024 showed RPSG group companies bought about Rs 609 crore of electoral bonds, with Haldia Energy alone buying Rs 377 crore, most of it redeemed by the Trinamool Congress. The donations were legal at the time; no court or agency has found wrongdoing linked to them.

Who will succeed Sanjiv Goenka?

His son Shashwat Goenka is vice-chairman of the RPSG Group and chairman of Spencer's Retail, and his daughter Avarna Jain is vice-chairperson of Saregama. In 2010 Sanjiv said: 'My son will succeed me.'

Sanjiv Goenka: RPSG & LSG Owner's Life Story

Key facts
Born	29 January 1961, Calcutta (now Kolkata), West Bengal [2] [21]
Family roots	Marwari business family from Dundlod, Shekhawati, Rajasthan, in Calcutta since about 1820 [3] [20]
Education	St Xavier’s Collegiate School, Kolkata (1977); St Xavier’s College, Kolkata (1981 batch) [22] [2]
Family	Father Rama Prasad (R.P.) Goenka; elder brother Harsh Goenka (RPG Enterprises); wife Preeti Goenka; son Shashwat Goenka, daughter Avarna Jain [2] [20]
Company/Group	RP-Sanjiv Goenka (RPSG) Group: CESC, PCBL Chemical, Firstsource, Saregama, Spencer’s Retail, Lucknow Super Giants, Mohun Bagan Super Giant [3]
Wealth	About US$3.5 billion (Forbes real-time, 28 October 2026); No. 80 on Forbes India’s 100 Richest 2026 at US$3.7 billion [1]
Known for	Turning around Kolkata’s century-old power utility, CESC, and building a power-to-cricket conglomerate

One morning in 1990, workers at the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation hanged an effigy at the entrance of Victoria House, the company’s colonial-era headquarters on Chowringhee. The effigy was of the 29-year-old director who had joined them barely fourteen months earlier. “My first reaction was stunned disbelief,” Sanjiv Goenka recalled two decades later. He could not read Bengali well, so he asked the man at the gate to read out the poster pinned beside the dummy [11].

The young director had got the job in an unusual way. In 1989 he had bought a parcel of CESC shares from a broker without telling his father, the famous takeover specialist R.P. Goenka, who had already turned the offer down. “My father was totally opposed to it,” Goenka said. “I bought the shares without telling him. He did not eat for two days when I told him about it” [12].

That secret purchase became the foundation of one of India’s best-known business groups. Today the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group runs power plants and distribution networks from Kolkata to Chandigarh, the country’s largest carbon black maker, a global outsourcing firm, India’s oldest music label, a supermarket chain and a portfolio of sports teams that includes the IPL’s Lucknow Super Giants [3] [4]. Forbes put Goenka’s net worth at about US$3.5 billion in October 2026 [1].

His story is less a rags-to-riches tale than a test of whether a son of privilege can build something his own. It also includes fan protests, a viral sideline argument, heavy losses in retail and serious questions about coal and political donations.

Where it began

Two hundred years in Calcutta

The Goenkas have been doing business in Calcutta for about two centuries. Around 1820 an ancestor, Ramdutt Goenka, came to the city from Dundlod in Rajasthan’s Shekhawati region and began working as a banker and agent for British trading houses [3] [20]. Over the generations the family became banians, the Indian commission agents who financed and supplied the European managing agencies that ran Bengal’s jute, tea and trade [14].

Sanjiv’s great-grandfather, Sir Badridas Goenka, became the first Indian chairman of the Imperial Bank of India, today’s State Bank of India, in 1933 [16]. His grandfather, Keshav Prasad Goenka, joined Duncan Brothers, a British managing agency, became its chairman in 1957 and took full control by 1963, in what the press of the time called one of the biggest corporate coups of the era [14] [3].

In early 1979 Keshav Prasad divided his empire among his three sons at his flat in Bombay. The historian Gita Piramal records that in about 20 minutes, 15 companies changed hands. Sanjiv’s father, Rama Prasad, got the last pick: Phillips Carbon Black, Asian Cables, Agarpara Jute and Murphy India [14]. “The separation was requested by me,” R.P. Goenka said later. “My brothers did not want it” [14].

The takeover king’s younger son

What followed made R.P. Goenka the best-known corporate raider of 1980s India. He bought Ceat in 1981, KEC in 1982 and Searle India in 1983, and took a stake in Dunlop India with Manu Chhabria in 1984. Then came the Gramophone Company of India (HMV, now Saregama), Harrisons Malayalam, and in 1989 CESC and Spencer’s [3] [14]. Piramal wrote that the 1989 deals added almost Rs 1,000 crore to group sales and lifted RPG Enterprises from 13th to 4th among Indian business groups [14].

R.P. Goenka described his method plainly: “I have never looked at the balance sheet of any company I took over. It was pure gut-feel” [3].

Sanjiv was born on 29 January 1961 in Calcutta, the younger of two sons of R.P. Goenka and Sushila Goenka, a music lover who was a daughter of the Kanoria business family [2] [23]. His elder brother, Harsh, was born in 1957.

It was a strict, traditional Marwari household. The brothers grew up in a joint family with cousins, and Sanjiv says home discipline was so tight that his Jesuit school felt like a release [22]. His mother left him one line that he calls “the greatest driving force of my life”: “Beta kuchh karo, kuchh naya karo” (son, do something, do something new) [15].

He studied at St Xavier’s Collegiate School, finishing in 1977, and then at St Xavier’s College, Kolkata, as part of the 1981 batch [22] [2]. (Many profiles say he took a B.Com degree; we could not find a primary source confirming the exact degree.) Unlike his brother, who did an MBA in Switzerland, Sanjiv has no management degree. He later argued that after the first five to seven years of a career, experience counts for more than qualifications [22] [16].

Sanjiv says his biggest lesson in leadership came from his great-grandfather’s unpublished autobiography, which taught him how to keep a large joint family together fairly [22].

The first break

The Dunlop apprenticeship

Sanjiv first worked in Hyderabad. He then returned to Calcutta as deputy managing director of Dunlop India, the tyre maker in which the Goenkas and Manu Chhabria had bought a 9.8% stake [11]. His father wanted him to run a prized Calcutta company, the way Harsh was running Ceat from Bombay [16].

Dunlop was a sick company, and it taught him a great deal. “As a youngster, it gives you a kick when you are able to resolve a longstanding problem, apart from building your confidence,” he said [11]. The partnership with Chhabria broke down over a clash of cultures, and the Goenkas left Dunlop in 1989 [11]. Goenka took a lesson from the exit: of the 46 executives at general-manager level and above, 41 chose to leave with him [11].

The CESC gamble

In 1989 a broker, C.K. Dhanuka, was looking for a buyer for a block of CESC shares. His father had said no. Sanjiv, then 28, bought them anyway [11] [17]. The family went on to take control of the company that year [3].

It was not an obvious prize. CESC had been set up in London in 1897 and began supplying Calcutta in 1899, as India’s first fully integrated electricity utility [4] [12]. By 1989 it was in poor shape. “Yes, CESC was small. It was bad. It was inefficient,” Goenka said. “The turnover was Rs 300 crore, profit was Rs 5-6 crore… There used to be 10 to 12 hours of power cuts every day” [11]. About a quarter of its power was lost in transmission and distribution [12].

The new owners were also outsiders in a proud Bengali city. The union protests, culminating in the effigy at the gate, were followed by years of hard negotiation. Goenka rang his father’s friends for advice; “all of them gave me very practical advice,” he said [11]. Four or five years later, he says, CESC was able to cut its workforce by 3,500 people in a single day without a protest [11].

The turnaround took almost a decade [11]. Around 2000-01 CESC was in the red, with its net worth wiped out, until a Supreme Court tariff judgment in October 2002 helped it recover [13]. New capacity at Budge Budge followed. “From eight hours of power cuts a day, Kolkata now has virtually no power cuts,” Goenka said in 2011 [12].

An early national profile

The CESC fight gave him standing. In 1993 the World Economic Forum named him a Global Leader for Tomorrow [3]. In April 2001, aged 40, he became president of the Confederation of Indian Industry for 2001-02, which the group describes as making him its youngest-ever president [5] [2]. He has also been president of the All India Management Association and a member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Trade and Industry [2].

Building the empire

The split of 2010-11

For two decades Harsh and Sanjiv ran their father’s group together, Harsh as chairman and Sanjiv as vice-chairman. In August 2010 R.P. Goenka announced that RPG Enterprises would be divided between them by December. The split followed which businesses each son already ran, rather than a valuation [18].

Harsh took Ceat, KEC International, Zensar Technologies, RPG Life Sciences, Raychem and Spencer’s Travel [18].
Sanjiv took CESC, Noida Power, Phillips Carbon Black, Saregama, Spencer’s Retail and Music World [18].
Harrisons Malayalam’s plantations were later divided between the brothers [11].

On 13 July 2011 Sanjiv unveiled the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group. At launch it had about Rs 9,000 crore of revenue, Rs 4,500 crore of market value and Rs 14,000 crore of assets [19]. He described the parting as amicable: “We vibed very well and complemented each other,” he said of his brother [11]. One morning during the process, he recalls, his father gave him a book on Tirumala Tirupati as a blessing for the new journey [15].

He also set out to show he was different from his father. “Well, my father was very famous. I am not very famous,” he joked in 2011. “So that’s one thing I have certainly not inherited” [11]. Business Today’s cover story that year was headlined that he preferred to build companies rather than buy them [11]. His record since then includes plenty of both.

Power: the flagship grows up

CESC is still the core of the group. Its businesses now include:

about 2,140 MW of thermal capacity, including Budge Budge (750 MW), Haldia Energy (600 MW) and Dhariwal Infrastructure (600 MW in Chandrapur, Maharashtra) [4]
distribution licences in Kolkata, Greater Noida and, since 2025, Chandigarh, plus distribution franchises in Kota, Bharatpur, Bikaner and Malegaon [4]

In total it serves over 4.7 million customers [4].

The Chandigarh deal shows how slowly utility deals can move. CESC’s unit was the highest bidder in 2021, offering Rs 871 crore for the Union Territory’s distribution company, well ahead of Torrent Power, NTPC and ReNew. Employees and unions went to court, and the letter of intent only came in November 2024 [28]. CESC finally took over on 1 February 2025 [29].

In 2017 Goenka tried to split CESC into four listed companies. The shares fell 15% on the day the plan was announced [25]. The retail business (Spencer’s) and a ventures company (later RPSG Ventures, holding Firstsource, the sports teams and the consumer brands) were listed in January 2019 [26]. The power regulator in West Bengal objected to separating generation from distribution, and that part of the plan was dropped [27].

In FY26 CESC reported consolidated revenue of Rs 18,570 crore and net profit of Rs 1,618 crore [9]. Its borrowings also climbed, to about Rs 21,700 crore [9].

The new bet is renewable energy. Goenka has said the group will not put another rupee into new thermal capacity [74]. Purvah Green Power, set up in 2023, is targeting 10 GW of renewable capacity [30]. In August 2026 it agreed to buy six solar project companies from ReNew, about 1.4 GW in all, at an enterprise value of Rs 4,859 crore, with completion expected by 31 October 2026 [6] [30]. A separate unit, CESC Green Power, has Odisha’s approval for a plant of about Rs 4,500 crore making solar cells, solar modules and battery packs [31].

Chemicals: from carbon black to battery materials

Phillips Carbon Black, which came to R.P. Goenka in the 1979 family split, makes the black powder that gives tyres their strength. Under Sanjiv it became PCBL Chemical, India’s largest carbon black producer and among the world’s biggest, with about 790,000 tonnes of annual capacity [3].

In November 2023 PCBL agreed to buy Pune-based Aquapharm Chemicals, a maker of water-treatment chemicals, for Rs 3,800 crore. This was a move into specialty chemicals, paid for with internal cash and fresh borrowing and fundraising [32]. In September 2025 the company set a target of Rs 16,000 crore of revenue by FY30, up from Rs 8,404 crore in FY25. A subsidiary is developing nano-silicon material for battery anodes, with a pilot plant due in FY27 [33].

Outsourcing: the quiet giant

One of the group’s biggest businesses is one many readers have never heard of. In October 2012 CESC agreed to take about 49.5% of Firstsource Solutions, the Mumbai-based business-process outsourcing company, from ICICI Bank and other investors, and to make an open offer for more. The deal was worth up to about Rs 650 crore [24]. “We have been looking at entering the BPO space for a while,” Goenka said then [24].

RPSG Ventures now holds 53.66% of Firstsource, which employs about 34,600 people and earned total income of Rs 7,979 crore in FY25 [7].

Music, media and the Carvaan surprise

Saregama, the former Gramophone Company of India, owns one of the largest music catalogues in the country. The group says it holds more than 160,000 songs in over 23 languages [3]. In 2017 Saregama launched Carvaan, a retro-style speaker preloaded with old Hindi film songs, aimed at older listeners who did not use streaming apps. It sold about 387,000 units in its first full year [37].

In December 2025 Saregama agreed to invest Rs 325 crore in filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s production company. Its stake can rise towards 51% by 2030, and it gets the music rights to the company’s films [38] [39]. The group also publishes Open magazine and, since 2020, the Indian edition of Fortune [3].

Retail and consumer brands: the hard road

The consumer bets have tested Goenka’s patience. In 2017 the group bought 70% of Rajkot-based Apricot Foods, maker of Evita snacks, at an enterprise value of Rs 440 crore [40]. It also launched its own Too Yumm! snacks and bought the Ayurveda brand Dr. Vaidya’s [7].

Spencer’s Retail bought Nature’s Basket, the gourmet grocery chain, from Godrej in 2019 for Rs 300 crore [34]. Spencer’s has rarely made money since; the losses are covered in the next section.

Sport: from Pune to Manchester

Goenka’s most public bets have been in sport.

ATK (2014): the group’s first team was a Kolkata ISL side, set up with Atlético de Madrid [3].
Rising Pune Supergiant (2015): with Chennai and Rajasthan suspended, the BCCI held a reverse auction for two temporary IPL teams. Goenka’s company won the Pune team by offering to pay the board Rs 16 crore a year [41].
Mohun Bagan (2020): in January 2020 RPSG bought 80% of the football company of Mohun Bagan, one of India’s oldest clubs, and merged it with ATK [42].
Lucknow Super Giants (2021): in October 2021 RPSG won the Lucknow IPL franchise for Rs 7,090 crore, the highest bid in the auction [44]. “When you’re 60, only fools look at vanity for investments,” he said a few months later [74].
Durban’s Super Giants (2022): a team in South Africa’s SA20 league [3].
Manchester Super Giants (2025): in 2025 RPSG bought 70% of Manchester Originals in England’s The Hundred for about £80 million, renaming it for the 2026 season [45].

The Lucknow investment got a boost in 2026. When other IPL franchises changed hands at much higher valuations in March-April 2026, shares of RPSG Ventures, which owns 51% of the team company, doubled in seven trading days [46].

How the wealth is actually held

Goenka’s fortune sits mostly in listed shares held through a web of family holding companies, not in his own name. As of September 2026:

Rainbow Investments held about 44% of CESC, 47% of PCBL and 44% of Spencer’s [10].
The promoter group’s total holdings were about 52% of CESC, 53% of PCBL, 61% of Saregama and 64% of RPSG Ventures [10] [7].
Sanjiv’s direct personal stake in CESC was just 0.10% [10].

Forbes describes the group as having about US$4.9 billion in revenue [1].

His net worth has drifted down with group share prices. Forbes put it at US$4.9 billion in 2024 and US$3.7 billion in its September 2026 India list, at No. 80. Its real-time estimate on 28 October 2026 was about US$3.5 billion [1]. A separate Barclays-Hurun ranking in 2025 valued the Goenka family’s businesses at Rs 74,000 crore. That is a measure of the businesses’ value, not of personal wealth [8].

The setbacks and failures

The family lost Dunlop. His first big assignment ended with the Goenkas leaving Dunlop India in 1989 after falling out with their partner, Manu Chhabria [11].

CESC’s lost decade. It took Goenka roughly ten years to fix CESC. In between came union hostility, the effigy, and a period around 2000-01 when the company’s net worth was wiped out [11] [13].

Spencer’s: a long, costly loyalty. Goenka has stuck with Spencer’s for decades. “I’m still passionate about it and I’m still going to go on with it,” he said in 2010 [17]. His son Shashwat took charge of it in 2013, aged 23, when it was losing about Rs 200 crore a year [70].

The chain left Tamil Nadu and Kerala and shut loss-making stores. By December 2023 its consolidated net worth had turned negative [36].
In FY26 revenue fell 9.8% to Rs 1,800 crore, and the net loss was Rs 249 crore [35].

Spinoffs that sank on debut. When Spencer’s and CESC Ventures listed in January 2019, both hit the 5% lower circuit on their first day [26].

Cricket results that have not matched the spending. Lucknow reached the playoffs in its first two seasons, 2022 and 2023. It then finished seventh in 2024 and 2025 and last in 2026 [53]. Rishabh Pant, bought for a then-record Rs 27 crore at the November 2024 auction, gave up the captaincy after the 2026 season [53].

A shrinking paper fortune. Forbes’ estimate of his wealth fell from US$4.9 billion in 2024 to about US$3.5 billion in October 2026, a drop of more than a quarter, as shares of group companies declined [1].

Controversies and allegations

As of 29 October 2026, no court or regulator has found Sanjiv Goenka personally liable for wrongdoing in any of the matters below. They are included because they have been documented by official bodies or widely reported by major publications.

Electoral bond donations (2019-2024)

Allegation: Supreme Court-ordered disclosure of electoral bond data in March 2024 showed RPSG group companies were among India’s largest political donors. Haldia Energy bought Rs 377 crore of bonds, and Business Standard’s analysis showed Rs 281 crore of that went to the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Rs 81 crore to the BJP and Rs 15 crore to the Congress [61]. The Wire tallied about Rs 609 crore in bonds across group firms, including Dhariwal Infrastructure, PCBL and Crescent Power, plus about Rs 100 crore given through an electoral trust [62]. Scroll’s analysis made RPSG companies the TMC’s second-largest donor [63]. The Wire set out the timing of the purchases around the 2021 West Bengal election and a 2022 CBI case. It stated that it was not establishing any cause-and-effect link [62]. In 2023 the BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari publicly questioned the group’s donations to the TMC [64].

Response: We found no public statement from Goenka or the group on the donations in the reporting reviewed.

Status: The purchases were legal under the scheme when made. The Supreme Court struck the electoral bond scheme down in February 2024. No investigation of RPSG over the bonds has been reported.

The Sarisatolli coal block auction (2015)

Allegation: In 2014 the Supreme Court cancelled 204 coal block allocations made since 1993, including CESC’s Sarisatolli mine in West Bengal. CESC won the block back at an e-auction in February 2015 [58]. In February 2023 The Reporters’ Collective, published by Al Jazeera and The Wire, reported that three of the five qualified bidders were RPSG entities. It said one of them, Sheesham Commercial, was a shell company acquired by group firms two days before the deadline, and that it bid from the same IP address as CESC. The reporters said these facts matched the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) definition of bid-rigging, based on CAG audit correspondence [56] [57].

Response: The reporters said RPSG did not answer their questions. The Coal Ministry rejected the CAG’s concerns, citing a Delhi High Court ruling that found no cartelisation and saying the auction had enough competition [56].

Status: The CAG’s published report on coal auctions did not name the group. No court case, CBI case or regulatory action over the 2015 auction has been reported.

CBI case over 1990s coal allocations (2022)

Allegation: In September 2022 the Central Bureau of Investigation registered an FIR alleging criminal conspiracy, cheating and corruption. It related to coal blocks allotted in 1993-95, before the family split, and named RPG Industries, RPG Enterprises and CESC. The CBI alleged that the applicants misrepresented which company would own and operate the power plants the coal was meant for [59] [60].

Response: The group told The Telegraph: “We categorically deny any involvement in this alleged offence.” It also pointed out that the RPG Enterprises named is not Harsh Goenka’s present-day company [60].

Status: The case is under investigation. As of today no chargesheet has been reported, and no individual has been publicly named.

The KL Rahul sideline video (2024)

Allegation: On 8 May 2024, after Sunrisers Hyderabad chased down Lucknow’s total of 165 in under ten overs, TV cameras showed Goenka in an animated exchange with captain KL Rahul by the boundary. Former players and fans criticised him for doing it in public [47].

Response: Days later Goenka hosted Rahul for dinner at his Delhi home and later called him “family” [47]. When Lucknow did not retain Rahul in October 2024, Goenka said the team wanted “players who have a mindset to win” [48].

What happened next:

Rahul joined Delhi Capitals. He later said he wanted to play “where I could find some freedom” and that the on-field episode “wasn’t the nicest thing” [49].
ESPNcricinfo reported in September 2025 that mentor Zaheer Khan left after his vision did not align with the management’s [50].
After another viral clip with captain Rishabh Pant in April 2026, former IPL chief Lalit Modi called Goenka “poison to the game” [51]. Modi was himself banned for life by the BCCI in 2013.

Status: No BCCI action has been taken against Goenka. He says the episodes were blown up online: “With Rishab, there has never been a scolding situation, ever,” he said in April 2026. “They decided, ‘let’s make Sanjiv Goenka a punching bag’.” He added that he naturally talks with his hands and is “now learning to keep my hands behind” [52].

Mohun Bagan: the name fight and the Asian ban

Allegation: After the 2020 merger the club played as “ATK Mohun Bagan”. Many supporters of the 1889 club saw the ATK prefix as an erasure of its identity. In January 2021 fans marched to the group’s office under the hashtag #RemoveATK [54].

Response: After the club won the ISL title in 2023, Goenka dropped ATK, and the club became Mohun Bagan Super Giant from 1 June 2023 [43].

What happened next:

In September 2025 the club refused to travel to Iran for an AFC Champions League Two match, citing security concerns.
In December 2025 the Asian Football Confederation banned it from its competitions through 2027-28 and fined it about US$100,000 [55].

Status: The club said it would consider an appeal. As of today we found no reported change to the ban.

Kolkata power bills

Allegation: CESC’s tariffs are a perennial political issue in Kolkata. In July 2024 Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused CESC of raising bills without informing the state. The BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari led protests and set a deadline for a rollback [65].

Response: CESC said tariffs had not changed. It said it had only passed on a fuel-cost adjustment under a 2022 central government rule [65].

What happened next: Adhikari became West Bengal’s Chief Minister in May 2026. Business Today reported that a tariff revision was under discussion [66].

Status: As of today we found no reported state action against CESC or change to its tariffs.

Giving back

Goenka’s giving runs mostly through institutions rather than headline pledges. In February 2014, as companies prepared for India’s new mandatory CSR rules, he announced a group-wide trust that would build “educational and medical institutions” and make them self-sustaining, along with scholarships for bright students from poor families. “We do CSR in a different way,” he said [67]. CESC’s CSR now spans healthcare, education, skills training, sport, and art and culture [4].

Education is his most visible public role. He is chairman of the International Management Institute in Delhi, Kolkata and Bhubaneswar [2]. He chaired the Board of Governors of IIT Kharagpur over several terms, the last ending in 2022. “It is a real honour and a privilege to be able to serve an iconic institution,” he said in 2021 [76] [77]. He has received several honorary doctorates, most recently from KIIT in Bhubaneswar in October 2026. There he told students: “All you need to do is believe in yourself, pursue your dreams, pursue your ambitions and the end is limitless” [78].

The West Bengal government gave him its Banga Bibhushan honour in 2015 [3]. He remains rooted in the city where workers once hanged his effigy. “Calcutta has been phenomenally supportive of everything I have done,” he said in 2021 [75].

Succession

Goenka watched his father divide an empire while he was still alive and able to oversee it. He has been just as clear about his own plans. “My son will succeed me. I have no illusions about that, neither does he,” he told Business Standard in 2010 [17].

Shashwat Goenka joined the group after studying at Wharton [68] and took over Spencer’s at 23 [70]. In May 2023 he succeeded his father as chairman of Spencer’s Retail, in a move the company described as succession planning [69]. He is now vice-chairman of the RPSG Group and was elected chairman of the CII’s Eastern Region for 2025-26 [72].

Daughter Avarna Jain became vice-chairperson of Saregama in January 2022 [71]. Below the family, the group is run by professional managing directors at each company, with a group-level team for finance, HR and strategy [3].

Shashwat has drawn his own lesson from his grandfather’s example: “He split the business between his two sons while he was still alive.” In his words, the lesson is to “take the necessary steps while you’re still there” [70].

What their journey teaches

Back your judgment, even against the family elder. The CESC deal began with a 28-year-old ignoring his father’s “no”. It cost R.P. Goenka two days of meals and gave Sanjiv the business that defined his life [12]. Conviction needs to be followed by years of execution, but sometimes it has to start with saying yes when the elders say no.

A turnaround is measured in decades, not quarters. It took about ten years, a public humiliation at the gate and near-insolvency before CESC became the steady earner behind everything else [11] [13]. Most of the group’s later deals were funded by that patience.

Hire for the job, then let them do it. Goenka’s own formula: “Hire the right kind of people for the right job and good execution. That’s 80 percent of the job done” [73]. The 41 executives who walked out of Dunlop with him suggest people will follow a leader they trust [11].

Know when to stop, as well as when to start. His group has said it will invest no more in thermal power, and it is moving money into renewables [74]. Shutting stores in whole states at Spencer’s was a painful but necessary admission [36]. Knowing which bets to stop backing is as important as making new ones.

In the age of the camera, leadership is a public act. One sideline conversation in 2024 shaped the public’s view of Goenka more than decades of boardroom work did [47] [52]. For any founder or manager, how you treat your team in a bad moment is now visible to everyone.

Wealth on paper follows the market, not your effort. His estimated fortune fell by more than a quarter in two years even as CESC’s profits grew [1] [9]. Readers interested in how markets and the wider economy move can find more in CapitalVia Insights.

For more stories of Kolkata’s and India’s Marwari business families, read our profiles of Ghanshyam Das Birla and Kumar Mangalam Birla. For another founder’s long struggle in Indian retail, see Kishore Biyani.

A profile for general reading, based on public records and reporting as of 29 October 2026. Not investment, tax or legal advice.