As Jayant took the helm of the Madhvani Group, he was determined to involve all stakeholders in the business, making contributions to and building of schools, colleges, co-operatives and other social enterprises and community support structures. Just as Jayant was passionate about supporting society, he was a daring entrepreneur. In 1958, the Madhvani Group comprised a handful of companies which by 1970 had expanded to over 70 businesses with turnover exceeding ₤30 million with 22,000 employees. Glass factories were acquired and built in Kenya, Tanzania and Lebanon. A new agro-industrial sugar complex at Mtibwa in Tanzania was established. Steel factories were built in Uganda, Kenya and India. A ferrous and non-ferrous processing business was acquired in Nairobi. The sweets and soap complex was built in Arusha, Tanzania and a nearby agricultural estate was acquired at Rasha Rasha. Kilimanjaro Breweries was established in Arusha and a third brewery was planned for construction in Mwanza. A modern world-class textile factory was built in Jinja, with the first African investment by the International Finance Corporation. Still another textile mill was acquired and modernised in Mombasa, Kenya. In Jinja, the match factory and the tyre re-treading businesses were established as was Mulbox the packaging company. An oxygen production unit was built, and a fifth glass factory was established in Kampala. All the while this extraordinary expansion was taking place the production capacity at Kakira underwent a doubling of capacity to 80,000 tons of sugar annually. In 1970 Jayant commissioned an ultra-modern plastics extrusions factory in New Brunswick, Canada under an exclusive marketing agreement with the fashion house Christian Dior. And as if that were insufficient he launched the Group still further into a cosmetics and beauty joint-venture with Elizabeth Arden and Coty for East Africa. The first and distinguished Governor of the Bank of Uganda, Joseph Mubiru described Jayant’s successes as “a landmark in the economic development of Uganda and East Africa as a whole” aptly calling Jayant the “Economic Colossus”.

Jayant’s pre-occupation for economic development was an indelible structure on Uganda’s, and East Africa’s social and economic landscape. Under his leadership, the Madhvani Group took shape when he was a very young man, with his intuitive talent for organising the future pattern well ahead of others. The planning of industries, arranging their financing, securing and training of manpower and obtaining markets for the Group’s products and services. He initiated the formation of the Uganda Federation of Industries, established the community owned East Africa General Insurance Company and the Uganda Building Society. Jayant had the zeal to integrate industry and commerce with society through education and generous philanthropy, in which the role of Government played an indispensable part. He campaigned for policies and decisions, though politically unpopular, were in the interest of society and business. Sir Peter Parker, then Chairman of British Rail, wrote about Jayant: “Never have I known a man with more capacity to care for so many [whose] advances during a life longer than most in ideas and in action, were break-throughs which we could do well to consolidate”. Jayant pioneered an employee stock-option plan offering all employees to own shares in the Madhvani Group. For Jayant the core driving principle was that whereas machines and technology must be the most advanced, they cannot develop people – only people can do that for themselves and for others. Jayant created change over industrialism, for the purposes of industry, in an emerging Africa – so much so that the interdependence of public and private sectors and the flexible concept of the mixed economy provided a great relief to the stiffness in the politics of the right vis-a-vis the left. In the end Jayant, the great industrialist, created resilience and hopes for industrial communities applicable far beyond the Uganda homeland. For Jayant Madhvani, his handling of what he saw as proper responsibility for the Madhvani Group of Companies, he made sure there was a social policy as part of his planning for industrial expansion.

The chequered political economy of Uganda and East Africa after independence regularly featured the Asians and their economic prowess. Indians were considered as inferior by the colonial white settlers, that Muljibhai confronted when Vithaldas Madhvani emigrated from India. Whereas the Africans remained mired in poverty and the White man grew fat, the Indian did not starve. It was not a satisfactory situation. So it was so much more relevant that Jayant upheld his father’s promise of fair trade whilst establishing the Madhvani Group’s industrial conglomerate. Although he never experienced the arrogant attitude of the powerful colonial and settler community (as in Kenya and elsewhere throughout the British Empire), Jayant cultivated a warm companionship with Europeans and an endearing friendship of trust of Africans and African leaders. Jayant saw no reason why newly independent nations should not grow and prosper and that independence could be achieved peacefully. Jayant’s painstaking work as a member of the Legislative Assembly was vindicated when the Union Jack was drawn down, in Uganda, with the consent of all stakeholders on 9th October 1962. The post-independence challenges in each of the East African countries were manifest with issues of poverty, strife, hunger, national frustration and the creep of corruption. The racial tensions were palpable but for Jayant his life’s unceasing work to promote racial and social harmony was vindicated by embracing nationalism and adopting without reservation to the requirements of the new nations. For Jayant was not only the great industrialist he was also the towering nationalist. The sense of public duty that began in the Legislative Assembly after 1953, was reinforced by accepting the Government’s nomination to be appointed the Executive Chairman of Uganda’s Export and Import Corporation. Although the appointment was steeped in a socialist movement, Jayant never lost his commitment to private enterprise as he successfully navigated socialist policies when in Uganda in 1970 Kakira Sugar Works and the Steel Corporation of East Africa and subsequently in Tanzania Kilimanjaro Breweries and Mtibwa Sugar Company, were nationalised. Before Jayant died he successfully negotiated with the Governments to maintain a significant shareholding with rights of management. Long before however, as early as 1965, Jayant had offered the Government through the Uganda Development Corporation a 25% shareholding in some of the larger Companies. So for Jayant it was a serious undertaking to adopt Uganda nationality and while he may have been agitated at the onset of socialism, he did not disparage the Government’s policy and instead secured a meaningful and continuing partnership with the state.

From the time VH & Co. was partitioned in 1947, Jayant Madhvani’s central tenets for business were markets, diversification and community enterprise. He strove to establish profitability for each enterprise where cash-flow became the index for success. He seized advantage of regulations – such as tax deferral to the maximum extent permissible – so that cash is used to invest in equipment, machinery and technology for the Group. Against all odds he posthumously succeeded to secure for Uganda a quota to sell in aggregate 45,000 tons of Uganda manufactured sugar to the United States. This success was typical of Jayant’s tactical and consummate skills to succeed even against the advice of the Executive Branch and the State Department of the Government of the United States. This achievement was to benefit in equal measure not just the Madhvani Sugar Works at Kakira but also all segments, public and private, of Uganda’s sugar industry.

His flexibility of thought and the ability to engage with everyone at every level were the keys to this man’s greatness, as a simple and humble man who demanded the most from those who worked with him. The greatest tribute to Jayant is to incorporate in our life these virtues with dedication and loyalty that he offered and expected. But at the serene centre of it all was his wife Meena, the entire Madhvani Family, all the employees and his country Uganda. At the heart, was the measure: his love for them and his fun with them enthused all that he did. This was the true proportion of Jayant Madhvani and the Madhvani Group when he suddenly and unexpectedly tragically died in New Delhi on 25th July 1970 on his way, together with his family and friends, for a pilgrimage to holy caverns at Amarnath in Kashmir. A year later, in 1971 at the Mass held at Namirembe Cathedral, Kampala, and led by Monsignor Anatole Kamya, the Vicar General, Jayant was honoured by Pope Paul VI with the award of the Gregorian Cross. More recently in 2015, President Yoweri Museveni honoured Jayant Madhvani with the posthumous of the Golden Jubilee Medal for services to the Nation.