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The Financial Express on Sunday raises a toast to Padma award winning industry captains — Vijaypat Singhania, Nandan Nilekani, Deepak Parekh, S Ramadorai, Suresh Krishna and Shahnaz Husain.

At 67, most corporate honchos usually hang up their working gloves and prefer to lead a retired life, passing on the baton of their empire to the younger generation. Not so for Vijaypat Singhania who is as busy as ever. After setting new sporting records in 2005, he has just been sworn in as the sheriff of Mumbai and has also been conferred the Padma Bhushan.

Singhania broke the world record in November 2005 for the highest flight in a hot air balloon and reached the fringes of space.

He surpassed 21,000 metres (69,000 ft), a little more than two hours after taking off in his 40-ton (44 US ton) balloon. Singhania, the chairman emeritus of the Raymond Group, one of India’s leading textile companies, also set a record for ultralight aviation 17 years ago when he flew 9,655 kilometres (6,000 miles) from Britain to India in 23 days.

In his new role as the Mumbai sheriff, Singhania hopes that he will be able to contribute to the city of his residence. “I want to do so much for the city. We need to ensure everybody gets good quality of life,” he said shortly after the swearing-in ceremony. Apart from aviation, Singhania is also a man of myriad interests and has donned a number of hats with effortless ease.

Belonging to the fourth generation of a prominent industrialist family, Singhania has been a management professor (teaching postgraduate students at the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies). He has also served a term on the board of governors of Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad. And then Singhania has also been active in the sport of horse racing for three decades, serving as a member of the Royal Western India Turf Club, Mumbai, for several years before retiring as its chairman in 1996/97 and is a keen photographer.

He is also a keen philanthropist who has initiated numerous projects like animal husbandry and cattle-breeding programmes. And late last year he even wrote a book, Angel In The Cockpit, describing his flight from UK to India.