Gautam Adani was born on 24 June 1962 in a Jain family to Shantilal and Shanti Adani in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. He has 7 siblings and his parents had migrated from the town of Tharad in the northern part of Gujarat. His father was a textile merchant. He was educated at Sheth Chimanlal Nagindas Vidyalaya school in Ahmedabad. He enrolled in a bachelor’s degree in commerce at Gujarat University, but dropped out after the second year. Adani was keen on business, but not his father’s textile business.

In 1978, as a teenager, Adani moved to Mumbai to work as a diamond sorter for Mahendra Brothers. He worked there for 2-3 years before establishing his own diamond brokerage firm at Zaveri Bazaar, Mumbai.

In 1981, his elder brother Mansukhbhai Adani bought a plastics unit in Ahmedabad and invited him to manage the operations. This venture turned out to be Adani’s gateway to global trading through polyvinyl chloride (PVC) imports.

In 1985, he started importing primary polymers for small-scale industries. In 1988, Adani established Adani Exports Limited, now known as Adani Enterprises Limited – the holding company of the Adani Group. Originally, the company dealt in agricultural and power commodities.

In 1991, the economic liberalization policies turned out to be favorable for his company and he started expanding the businesses into trading of metals, textiles, and agro products.

In 1994, the Government of Gujarat announced managerial outsourcing of the Mundra Port and in 1995, Adani got the contract.

In 1995, he set up the first jetty. Originally operated by Mundra Port & Special Economic Zone, the operations were transferred to Adani Ports & SEZ Limited (APSEZ). Today, the company is the largest private multi-port operator. Mundra Port is the largest private sector port in India, with the capacity of handling close to 210 million tons of cargo per annum.

In 1996, the power business arm of the Adani Group – Adani Power Limited was founded by Adani. Adani Power holds thermal power plants with a capacity of 4620 MW, the largest private thermal power producer of the country.

Gautam Adani is the president of the Adani Foundation, funded through the Adani Group. It was founded in 1996. Other than Gujarat, the Foundation operates in the states of Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha.

In 2006, Adani entered the Power generation business. From 2009 to 2012, he acquired Abbot Point Port in Australia and Carmichael Coal in Queensland.

In May 2020, Adani won the world’s largest solar bid by the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) worth $6 billion. The 8000 MW photovoltaic power plant project will be taken up by Adani Green; and Adani Solar will establish 2000MW of additional solar cell and module manufacturing capacity.

In March 2020, he contributed Rs 100 crore to the PM CARES Fund through his group’s philanthropy arm, to fight the Coronavirus outbreak. A contribution of Rs 5 crore was made to the Gujarat CM Relief Fund and Rs 1 crore to the Maharashtra CM Relief Fund.