25 Top Indian Personalities of 2022-2023

There are numerous personality present throughout our life times whose story is known to inspire and motivate us. The life journey of these personalities gives us an insight in to what sort of an individual one should aspire to be and that giving up is never an option.

To whatever extent possible, I have tried to avoid the villains and dark knights who could possibly be taken up in a separate list.

Read: Top Indian Personalities of 2016

The rankings are have no organizational connect, representative or otherwise.

We would simply love to hear what was your favorite Indian personality this year. Leave your feedback and comments below.

  1. Narendra Modi

After putting Gujarat on the world map, Modi built his pan-India appeal and created an image of a decisive leader and an entrepreneur who can pull the nation out of economic woes. The 14th and the current Prime Minister of India is also the second most-followed leader in the world with over 78 million followers on Twitter. The social media-savvy politician became the first to interact with citizens through live chat on the internet. Ranked as the 9th most powerful person in the world by the Forbes magazine in the year 2018, the ‘Development Man of India’ has already created a compelling case for the global companies to come and invest in India.

2. Kailasavadivoo Sivan

Former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman has definitely made his mark in Indian Space History as under his leadership India started getting recognized as a giant in Space technology as numerous countries started launching their rockets through India. He played a significant role in the launch and development of India’s heaviest satellite GSLV Mk-III.

3. Amit Shah

The existing Home Minister and PM Modi’s confidante, Amit was ranked among top 3 in the 2014 100 Global Thinkers’ decision-makers category circulated by Foreign Policy magazine in the U.S. The magazine applauded his ‘otherworldly understanding’ in building hype around Modi and steering BJP to a win in the national polls twice.

4. Arvind Kejriwal

Former bureaucrat and current Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo, Kejriwal hogged the political landscape of Delhi by sitting as the Delhi Chief Minister since 2015 . A strong votary of India Against Corruption. Under his leadership recently the Aam Aadmi Party won a strong mandate in Punjab elections.

5. Kapil Sharma

Known for his spontaneous humour, Kapil Sharma made the biggest climb this year as he ranked 33rd in the Forbes India Celebrity List of 2014. From being an underpaid theatre artist to a most loved host of the popular TV show ‘Comedy Nights with Kapil’ where almost every Bollywood celebrity wants to promote their films. This man from Amritsar has seen a stellar growth. In 2021, the comedy king again managed to get his name in the Forbes list as he is one of the highest paid Celebrity in the country with a net worth of almost 170 crore.

6. Shahrukh Khan aka SRK

Ranked as the second-richest actor in the world in 2014, Shah Rukh Khan has an enviable asset worth US$600 million. With 14 Filmfare Awards and other global awards in his kitty, he was declared as the “the biggest movie star you’ve never heard of” by the Los Angeles Times. King Khan’s latest flick ‘Happy New Year’ turned out to be the biggest grosser of the year with a collection totalling Rs. 382 crore as of November 2014. The philanthropist in Shah Rukh made him adopt 12 villages to provide with electricity as part of the solar energy harnessing project’s initiative.

7. Baba Ramdev

Besides being a yoga guru and a strong proponent of Ayurveda, Baba Ramdev is also a business maven. Founder of a business empire worth Rs.30,000 crore, Ramdev’s net worth is greater than many corporate honchos. A prominent face of the anti-corruption movement, Ramdev is one of the nine people invited by Modi to join the ‘Clean India’ campaign. 

8. Sachin Tendulkar

The master cricketer is also the youngest recipient of the Bharat Ratna award. Tendulkar also became the first person without an aviation background to receive the honorary rank of group captain by the Indian Air Force. The only player to score more than 30,000 runs in all forms of international cricket, he also holds the world record for playing the highest number of Test and ODI matches. Forbes ranked him as the 51st richest sportsman in the world for the year 2013 and also the world’s highest-paid athletes for the same year with total earnings estimated to be $22 million. He was also ranked 9th in the Forbes Top 100 Celebrity profile.

9. Sundar Pichai

In a major shake-up at Google, co-founder CEO Larry Page and Sergey Bin announced to the World that Sundar Pichai will be the next Chief Operating Officer (CEO) of Alphabet becoming responsible for everything that Google offers from search, ads Google+, maps, commerce and infrastructure teams. The meteoric rise of young and brilliant Chennai-born Pichai from a CEO position is a calculated move to continue building vastly successful products aligned with the customers mindset. He is also the recipient India’s third highest civilian honor Padma Bhushan.

10. A.R. Rahman

A. R. Rahman came in the limelight from his first film, Roja. He also won National Film Awards for the film. A.R Rahman is also known as the Mozart of Madras, the singer has two golden globes and also won the Oscar award in 2009 for his song ‘Jai Ho’ in the movie Slumdog Millionaire. His net worth is around 590 crore and was honored with the third highest civilian honor of Padma Bhushan.

11. Virat Kohli

The former Indian cricket team captain holds the unique record of scoring the fastest century by an Indian batsman. A naturally aggressive batsman, Kohli is looked upon as the next big thing in Indian cricket after Tendulkar. Ranked as the 2nd most marketable athlete in the world by a sports magazine, Virat Kohli overtook Dhoni in terms of highest paid Indian sports celebrity. Virat recently surpassed the cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar as the most followed sportsperson on Twitter. According to Forbes in 2020, he was the only Indian athlete to feature in the Worlds Highest paid athlete.

12. Shashi Tharoor

Known as controversy’s favourite child, the ex-Union Minister and former diplomat got his share of news space for reasons more than one. Even before the furore over an alleged relationship with a Pakistani journalist could fade away, the unnatural death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar did raise suspicion about his role. Tharoor was dropped as the official spokesperson of the Congress party for accepting Modi’s invitation to be one of the nine brand ambassadors of Swacch Bharat mission. Widely considered as the ‘New Age Politician’, Tharoor stays connected with more than 83 lakh followers on Twitter. His paternal uncle, T. Parameshwar, was the founder of Readers Digest in India.

13. Mary Kom

Nicknamed ‘Magnificent Mary’, this fighter from Manipur became the first Indian woman boxer to get a Gold Medal in the Asian Games in 2014. The biopic on Mary Kom grossed a whopping Rs.104 crores worldwide within one month of its release. Both Padma Bhushan and Arjuna Award came her way in 2013 and in 2020 was awarded second the highest civilian honor Padma Vibhushan. She is one of the Indian woman boxer to have qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics and won a bronze medal. Mary Kom is currently serving in the Rajya Sabha and was nominated to the upper house in 2016.

14. Mukesh Ambani

Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh is the richest man in India. Despite a tough economic environment, he managed to grow his business exponentially and has invested over 5.6 billion dollars in new ventures. His decision to soft launch Reliance Jio in 2016 revolutionized the telecom sector and company turned out to be a game-changer in the telecom world. The recent takeover of Future retail group, one of India’s large retail conglomerate has also signaled its intentions to consolidate its interests in the retail market.

15. Nikhil and Nitin Kamath

Founders of now-famous brokerage company Zerodha, Nikhil and Nitin Kamath value their company around $2 billion in 2022. The two brothers have completely revolutionalized the way stock market works. Zerodha currently holds the biggest share in terms of market share and stands at the top with 18%. 

16. Peyush Bansal

Peyush is the founder of the highly successful online eyewear brand Lenskart. Under his leadership, the brand has seen a whopping 300 percent growth since inception and planning to make 1,50,000 shipments of prescription glasses a day. Lenskart is considering to get listed in the Indian stock exchange and currently values itself at $2.5 billion.

17. Anil Agarwal

Sixty-year old industrialist Anil Agarwal’s journey from a scrap-dealer to a billionaire is stuff dreams are made of. His Vedanta group is now regarded as one of most diversified natural resources company in the world at Rs. 77,400 crore net worth. His pledge to give away 75 percent of his wealth to charity signaled a great philanthropic move. He also holds 63rd rank in the Top 100 richest Indian in the country.

18. Adar Poonawala

Fourty-one year old CEO turned out to be India’s biggest hope during the worst of times. His company Serum Institute of India(SII) provided the country with the Vaccine while the World was in the initial stages of fighting the pandemic. According to SII it has produced over 1 billion vaccines of COVISHIELD.

19. M.S. Dhoni

Widely considered as one of the greatest finishers in limited-overs cricket, the captain of Indian cricket team has brought the winds of change. Dhoni has the best Test and ODI records among all Indian captains. Over the years, he has built the reputation of delivering even in the most hostile situation. Dhoni ranked 5th in the 2019 Forbes list of Top 100 Celebrity in India while being the 2nd best paid athletes in the country. His earnings in 2014 is estimated at $30 million. A biopic on Dhoni, M. S. Dhoni: The Untold Story, was a massive hit and racked in more than 200 crore.

20. Rohit Sharma

The ‘Hitman’ of Indian cricket and the current Indian cricket team captain created history after becoming the highest individual ODI scorer with 264 runs against Sri Lanka in November 2014. Sharma also became the only player to score two double hundreds in ODI cricket match. A permanent member of the Indian national team, Sharma is also pegged as one of the most successful Captains in IPL having a unique record of winning the league 5 times.

21. Amitabh Bachchan

The 79-year legendary screen icon has won many prestigious awards like Padma Vibushan in 2015 and India’s highest cinema award ‘Dadasaheb Phalke Award’ in 2019. A social media lover, his Facebook following crossed 39 million on Facebook and 47 million on Twitter. His upcoming movie ‘Brahmastra’ with Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt has got fans excited. 

22. Satya Nadella

With a pay package of around Rs. 520 crores, Nadella is among the highest paid CEOs in the world. As a change maker, Nadella is aggressively helping Microsoft to make inroads in the gaming segment and the very latest example is the acquisition of Activision which is a leader in gaming, the acquistion will make Microsoft the third largest gaming company. Ever since the Indian-origin technocrat came at the helm since 2013, Microsoft’s revenues have risen 84 percent to $143 billion in 2020 from $77.8 billlion.

23. Azim Premji

Wipro chairman Azim Premji pioneered a new era of philanthropic leadership by donating half of his fortune to a trust. Leading key educational initiatives through Azim Premji Foundation, he also figured in the top 10 list of Asian tech billionaires 2014 with a net worth of $16 billion. He is currently the 16th richest man in India. E-commerce industry has recently caught Premji’s fancy and he has made substantial investments in Myntra and Snapdeal. Although he stepped down from his role in 2019 but is known to be one of the most generous billionaire in the country.

24. Kiran Majumdar Shaw

Leading the Business Today‘s Top 13 Most Powerful Women in Indian Business is Kiran, founder of India’s leading listed biotechnology firm Biocon. In a first-of-its-kind tie-up globally, Biocon and Mylan together sought to introduce biosimilar for breast cancer treatment among Indian women in January. The 69-year-old is a self-made women billionaire who is an influential as well as an inspiring figure for the upcoming female entrepreneur. She is the recipient of India’s highest civilian order Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri.

25. Saina Nehwal

Olympic bronze medalist and former World No.4  shuttler, Saina continued on her journey to the pinnacle of world badminton. Her fans would remember in December 2010, she even climbed to number 2 ranking of the Badminton World Federation. The 31-year-old has won a total of 24 International titles and is recipient of India’s most prestigious awards like Arjuna Award and the Padma Bhushan.