The story of real estate mogul Niranjan Hiranandani, 71, is the story of Mumbai. A little bit of the maximum city’s chequered history, its evolution, and its challenges, can be pieced together in the choices that Niranjan, the son of Mumbai’s well-known ENT surgeon Dr Lakhumal Hiranand Hiranandani, made.

In a free-wheeling chat with AKADialog, Dr Niranjan, ranked by Forbes among the 100 richest Indians, shares his entrepreneurial journey, his leadership mantra, and his love for the city of Mumbai.

What challenges did you encounter while building your business?
[The choice had been made] but the going wasn’t easy. We suffered losses in one of the initial real estate projects which was near Mumbai’s suburban Versova, Andheri West. We figured it is difficult to get success with just one plot within a larger location, as each project architecture differs and common utilities are restricted to each project. I wanted to create something unique.

That happened with the abandoned stone quarry at Powai, a location where I envisaged creating Hiranandani Gardens.
The architecture spells class; the environment within which the towers are created is verdant green. The infrastructure had to be of global standards, the lifestyle had to be better than what any other project could offer. It has been a journey of trying and becoming better at every stage. We created similar projects in different geographies (Thane, Panvel, Chennai) and grew into a Group of Companies.
In real estate, we pioneered the development model of an integrated township, which offered homes, work spaces, entertainment, high street retail, F&B outlets along with landscaped green spaces which offered peace and tranquility, wellness and a healthy ‘community living’ lifestyle. Over the years, we have taken this model to a new configuration of light industrial, warehousing and logistics and homes for human resources in the industrial units with necessary social infrastructure. We have also forayed into Data Centres. It has been a huge success.
The key challenge has always been to create landmarks which set benchmarks. To always learn, to try and better the next from the previous. And create a team which can execute it all.