Karsanbhai Patel

Low-profile founder of Nirma, Karsanbhai Patel, started out mixing detergents in his backyard and selling them door-to-door on his bicycle.His low-price Nirma brand sparked a detergents war with bigger rivals such as Unilever and Procter & Gamble.Today Nirma is one of the largest producers of soda ash in the world.Patel has long handed over operations to the next generation and took the company private in 2012. In 2016 Nirma acquired the Indian operations of French cement major Lafarge for $1.4 billion and renamed his cement business as Nuvoco Vistas.