Metal‐catalyzed hydroformylation and hydrogenation heavily rely on ligands, among which phosphorous ligands play a pivotal role. This personal account presents a selection of three distinct classes of phosphorous ligands, namely, monodentate meta‐substituted phosphinites, bis‐phosphites, and P‐chiral supramolecular phosphines, developed in our group. The synthesis of these ligands, isolation, characterization, and their performance in transition metal‐catalyzed hydroformylation, isomerizing hydroformylation, and asymmetric hydrogenation of olefins is summarized. The state of the art development in iron‐catalyzed hydroformylation of alkenes and our contributions to the field is discussed. Use of phosphines enabled iron‐catalyzed hydroformylation of alkenes under mild conditions. Thus, this account demonstrates the central role of phosphorus ligands in industrially relevant transformations such as hydrogenation and hydroformylation. The seemingly matured field of ligand discovery still holds significant potential and will steer the field of homogeneous catalysis.

As phosphines readily invert, the synthesis of P-chiral phosphines is a challenging task and has been rarely investigated. We report the synthesis of a nickel complex [Ni-((S,S)Me-FerroLANE)(phenyl)(I)] (Ni-Cat.1) and its performance in a P-C coupling reaction to generate P-chiral phosphine. The Ni-Cat.1 was synthesized by mixing ligand (S,S) Me-FerroLANE with the metal precursor [(diphenylphosphanyl)nickel(phenyl)(I)] in good yield. Ni-Cat.1 was characterized using different spectroscopic and analytical techniques. Treatment of racemic methyl(phenyl)phosphine ( 1) with 1-(3-iodophenyl)urea (2) produced the corresponding P-chiral supramolecular phosphine (3). Optimization of reaction parameters produced sulfur protected phosphine N-(3-(methyl(phenyl)phosphorothioyl)phenyl)formamide (3') with excellent enantiomeric excess (99% ee) and moderate conversion (51%).