Long before boardrooms and balance sheets entered her life, a young dentist in Ahmedabad was honing a different kind of precision—holding a mouth mirror instead of a balance sheet, and wielding a dental drill rather than a signature pen. That dentist was Dr Priti G. Adani. Born in 1965 into a Gujarati family that prized education and public service, she seemed destined for a conventional medical career. Yet fate—helped along by an arranged marriage to Gautam Adani in 1986—nudged her onto a grander stage. In three decades she has morphed from qualified dental surgeon to one of India’s most influential philanthropists, commanding a personal net worth of roughly Rs 83.26 billion (about $1 billion) while steering the Adani Foundation across 18 states and nearly 6,000 villages. This is her story—and it is anything but conventional. Meet Gautam Adani’s Wife Priti Adani: From Drill Bits to Boardrooms After earning a Bachelor of Dental Surgery from Ahmedabad’s Government Dental College, Dr Priti could have spent a lifetime in the clinic. Instead, marriage to a then-up-and-coming entrepreneur set her compass spinning. She did not abandon medicine overnight; rather, she observed first-hand the way commerce intersects with community. By 1996—just ten years into married life—she established the Adani Foundation, deciding that her surgical steadiness could be repurposed to heal social fissures instead of cavities. Fun fact: Her move mirrored a global trend in the 1990s, when corporate social responsibility (CSR) in India was still a fledgling concept. The foundation’s launch predates the mandatory CSR rules added to the Indian Companies Act by almost two decades. Meet Gautam Adani’s Wife Priti Adani: Building a Blueprint for Change Education Matters: Dr Priti’s earliest initiatives centred on literacy drives and scholarships for first-generation learners. The Adani Vidya Mandirs—fee-free CBSE schools for underprivileged children—are among her proudest achievements. Alumni credit these institutions for pushing them into careers in software engineering, chartered accountancy and even civil services. Healthy Pulses, Healthy Villages: Healthcare programmes range from mobile medical units to large-scale interventions such as the Adani COVID Healthline—set up within weeks during the 2020 pandemic. Annual health camps now log more than half-a-million patient interactions. Paved Roads & Prosperity: Rural infrastructure projects include solar-powered street lighting, drinking-water pipelines, and women-led self-help collectives that market everything from millet snacks to bamboo crafts. Sustainable Livelihoods: Whether it is goat-rearing cooperatives in Kutch or fisheries on the Andhra coast, the foundation’s philosophy is clear: teach a trade, not just write a cheque. Together, these verticals touch an estimated seven million beneficiaries each year—roughly the population of London. Meet Gautam Adani’s Wife Priti Adani: The Accidental Billionaire Unlike many ultra-high-net-worth individuals who measure success in yacht lengths, Dr Priti’s riches arrived almost as a footnote to her philanthropy. Equity holdings in Adani group companies climbed steadily as the conglomerate expanded from ports to power. When the business headlines finally proclaimed her a billionaire, she reportedly marked the moment by approving an extra round of scholarships for girl students—a quiet celebration in true Priti style. Meet Gautam Adani’s Wife Priti Adani: Awards, Honours and That Honorary Doctorate In 2020 the Gujarat Law Society University conferred an honorary doctorate on Dr Priti for “services to education and humanitarian causes.” She has also been listed among India’s Most Powerful Women in Philanthropy by Business Today (2021) and received the FICCI-FLO Outstanding Achievement Award (2019). Each plaque is on display at the Foundation’s Ahmedabad office—though staff say she spends more time in the field than admiring the trophy cabinet. Meet Gautam Adani’s Wife Priti Adani: A Marriage of Minds (and Metrics) Gautam Adani has often quipped that his wife “took the bold decision to marry a tenth-pass dropout” and remains the “single biggest reason” for his success (quote: India Today Conclave, 2013). While the industrialist juggles ports, power lines and airports, Dr Priti keeps the group’s CSR index ticking higher. Their partnership is a case study in complementary strengths: one strategist chasing growth, the other ensuring it uplifts the communities surrounding that growth. Meet Gautam Adani’s Wife Priti Adani: Next-Gen Navigators The couple’s elder son, Karan Adani, is Managing Director of Adani Ports and SEZ Ltd, while the younger, Jeet Adani, serves as Vice President of Finance for the group. Both have inherited the family penchant for social impact, routinely earmarking project budgets for community development. In 2024 Karan announced a Rs 200-crore port-side mangrove restoration plan—crediting his mother’s environmental ethos for the blueprint. Meet Gautam Adani’s Wife Priti Adani: What Keeps Her Ticking? Morning Routine: Friends claim she begins the day with a Gujarati translation of The Bhagavad Gita and an hour-long walk. Favourite Book:Small Is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher—perhaps an ironic choice for someone overseeing macro-scale projects. Hidden Talent: Acoustic guitar; she once accompanied the foundation’s children’s choir at a low-key Annual Day, to the astonishment of staff. Meet Gautam Adani’s Wife Priti Adani: Why Her Story Matters In an era where CSR is sometimes reduced to glossy brochures and obligatory spend, Dr Priti G. Adani embodies a rarer archetype: the philanthropist who began carving her impact long before compliance demanded it, and who still talks more about child immunisation statistics than stock-market valuations. She reminds us that sometimes the best way to scale a fortune is to give large chunks of it away—strategically, sustainably, and with a surgeon’s precision. So next time you read about soaring port revenues or an audacious green-energy bid, spare a thought for the former dentist who quietly keeps the moral compass calibrated. Her drills may be retired, but her drive to mend lives is clearly front and centre—and there’s nothing remotely routine about that extraction.