India Inc’s brightest, biggest and bravest entrepreneurs were honoured at the Forbes India Leadership Awards held in Mumbai recently
– Business legend Azim Premji was honoured with the ‘Lifetime Achievement’ award
The Forbes India Leadership Awards, India’s most prestigious business awards, with an emphasis on excellence, innovation and transformational leadership, honoured some of India Inc’s biggest and brightest personalities at a high-profile ceremony in Mumbai on Thursday.
The awards, across nine categories, acknowledged the outstanding contribution of CEOs, entrepreneurs and business leaders who have built enterprises that have had a deep and enduring impact on the wider Indian society. The nominees and winners represented diverse backgrounds: startups and mid-sized firms to the more mature organisations operating at a global scale.
“The winners of the Forbes India Leadership Awards have found a balanced path to guide their organisations to success year after year. They command authority, as well as respect, and yet believe in flat organisational structures, decentralised decision-making and empowered teams. Change is something they embrace gracefully. The Forbes India Leadership Awards strives to recognise these changemakers and nation builders,” said Brian Carvalho, Editor, Forbes India.
The achievements of this year’s winners assume significance since they braved challenging economic conditions over the past year, to steer their organisations towards operational excellence.
Here are the winners of the Forbes India Leadership Awards 2018:
Outstanding Startup
R Narayan – Power2SME
GenNext Entrepreneur
Adar Cyrus Poonawalla – Serum Institute of India
Entrepreneur with Social Impact
Gayathri Vasudevan – LabourNet
Conscious Capitalist Company for the year
Narayana Health
Best CEO – Multinational Company
Sanjiv Mehta – Hindustan Unilever Ltd
Best Company – Public Sector
Saurabh Kumar – Energy Efficiency Services Limited
Best CEO – Private Sector
Rajeev Jain – Bajaj Finance
Lifetime Achievement Award for the Year
Azim Premji – Wipro Limited
Entrepreneur for the Year
Vivek Chaand Sehgal – Motherson Sumi Systems
Methodology
The process started almost six months ago, with extensive research on qualitative and quantitative parameters. The long-list of names for each category was whittled down by August and was narrowed down to a strong set of three to five nominees for each category. In September, a high-powered jury headed by Mr Harsh Mariwala, chairman of Marico Ltd, examined the nominations and came up with the set of winners. The other eminent members of the jury wereSaurabh Mukherjea, Founder, Marcellus Investment Managers; Sanjay Nayar, CEO, KKR India; Ashu Suyash, MD and CEO, Crisil; Ronnie Screwvala, Co-Founder of UpGrad; and Noshir Kaka, Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company India. Together, they bring years of experience in the corporate sector to the jury.
KPMG, Forbes India’s knowledge partner for the event, helped with the number crunching so essential for the process.