The Technology, Business & Government Lecture Series

Ideas that Worked: Creation of World–class Businesses through Management of Technology

by Hital R. Meswani, Executive Director of Reliance Industries Limited

Date: Thursday, April 7, 2005
Time: 4:30 p.m.
Location: Wu & Chen Auditorium, Levine Hall, 3330 Walnut Street

Reception to follow.

Hital R. Meswani is the Executive Director and a member of the Board of Reliance Industries Limited, the flagship company of the Reliance Group based in India. The Reliance Group, with sales in excess of $23 billion, represents the largest business house in the Indian private sector and is also the fastest–growing enterprise in India. The group’s businesses include Textiles, Synthetic Fibers, Petrochemicals, Petroleum Refining and Marketing, Oil & Gas Exploration and Production, Power, and Infocomm Services. Reliance’s assets include several of the world’s largest state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities such as the fibers and petrochemicals complex at Hazira ($3 billion) and one of the largest and most automated petroleum refining complexes at Jamnagar ($6 billion).

Mr. Meswani joined Reliance in 1990 and is responsible for all manufacturing and project activities of the entire group and for the business operations of Reliance Petroleum, including Refining and Downstream Marketing. Mr. Meswani personally led the execution of the Jamnagar and Hazira complexes. He is also responsible for rolling out Reliance Infocomm’s nationwide next–generation broadband and mobile network covering 5,000 cities/towns, and over 400,000 villages across India. Reliance Infocomm’s rollout also includes a nationwide retail chain of webworld outlets, which received several recognitions and awards within its first two years of operations.

Mr. Meswani is a Management and Technology graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and received a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from the School of Engineering and Applied Science and a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School. He was a recipient of the Indo American Society’s Young Achiever Award in 2003, and is an active member of two prestigious international organizations: Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and Young Entrepreneurs Organization (YEO). He serves on the Board of Overseers of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and on the Secondary School Admission Committee of the University of Pennsylvania.