Leaders
Gyanendra Dhungana, the banker who ran Nabil and chased the governorship
He rebuilt Nepal Bangladesh Bank, led the bank lobby, then took charge of Nabil after the merger. In 2025 he gave it up to seek the central bank's top job. Now he sits on boards in Colombo and Kathmandu.
How Chandra Dhakal built a bank on the money Nepalis send home
In 2001 most of Nepal's remittances moved through informal hundi brokers. The IME founder bet that migrant workers would trust a licensed company instead, and turned that bet into the country's largest bank.
Kailash Sirohiya's Kantipur survived an arrest and a fire. Its business model is the harder test
Nepal's largest media house came through its chairman's 2024 arrest, which ended without charge, and an arson attack. Revenue down about 70% in a decade and its heir's exit over the newsroom's journalism are harder problems.
Ang Tshering Sherpa built the Yeti group from a trekking kitchen. His heirs inherited its hardest tests
Seven years after the Yeti founder died in a helicopter crash, the group he built has lost control of its airline to an insurer, is preparing a share offering and faces a court case over state land in Kathmandu.
Binod Chaudhary, Nepal's only billionaire, a year after the fire
The uprising burned his home and the election that followed took his seat, yet Forbes still values Nepal's only billionaire at $2.1bn and the new prime minister has invited him to talk investment.
Rajendra Khetan sold the beer and bought the payments rails
After an arbitration with Carlsberg set a $744m price on his family's stake, the chairman of one of Nepal's oldest business houses is buying into Laxmi Sunrise Bank and Fonepay, the switch behind most of the country's QR payments.
Ajeya Sumargi's offshore funds return to Nepal's Supreme Court, eight years on
Investigators reopened an inquiry into money routed to his telecoms and cement companies, then the Supreme Court granted him interim protection. No charge has been filed in any of the inquiries.
Akshay Golyan takes the chair at one of Nepal's biggest exporters
The 37-year-old heir now runs a group behind close to a tenth of Nepal's exports, a freshly listed yarn maker priced at 141 times earnings and a 700 MW hydropower ambition.
Upendra Mahato's road from Siraha to Moscow and back
He turned $600 into a business spanning Russian electronics, Belarusian machinery and Nepal's first private mobile network, then founded the diaspora association whose split and reunion he has watched from its edge.
Anil Keshary Shah: the banker who keeps coming back to Nabil
A career chief executive whose 2018 return to Nabil was held up by a new central-bank rule, and who then joined the party that went on to win Nepal's 2026 election, is back on the board of one of the country's largest banks.
Shesh Ghale and Jamuna Gurung slip to 150th on Australia's rich list
The couple behind the Melbourne Institute of Technology have made Australia's rich list for 18 straight years, but have slid from around 80th as their Kathmandu hotel, begun in 2014, finally nears opening.