BS ANNUAL AWARDS 1>

While corporate India was represented by SunPharmaceutical founder & Managing DirectorDilip Shanghvi, Larsen & Toubro Chairman AM Naik, Asian Paints Vice-Chairman AswinDani and Bisleri International ChairmanPrakash Chauhan, the ad world wasrepresented by Madison World Chairman &MD Sam Balsara, Dentsu Aegis Network’sSouth Asia Chairman & Chief Executive AshishBhasin and ad gurus Sandeep Goyal and AmbyParameswaran.

There were at least two marquee namesfrom the world of management and strategicconsultancy — McKinsey India MD andMcKinsey Inc Director Noshir Kaka, and EYIndia CEO and Country Managing Partner RajivMemani. Among other guests were KKR IndiaCEO Sanjay Nayar, AZB Partners ManagingPartner Zia Mody, BSE MD Ashish Chauhan,Motilal Oswal Financial Services ChairmanMotilal Oswal, and Tata AIG General InsuranceMD & CEO K K Mishra.

The entrepreneurial spirit that Jaitley hadreferred to was best exemplified by VivekChaand Sehgal, chairman of Motherson SumiSystems, a company started by him and hismother. The recipient of the Company of theYear award, Sehgal said: “We are not high-profile, but we focus on what we do and lovewhat we do. Motherson has 42,000 employeesin India and 72,000 across the world; wemanufacture spare parts used by some of themost famous cars globally.”

Tech Mahindra MD & CEO C P Gurnani, whoreceived the CEO of the Year award, said hiscompany strongly believed in driving positivechange, accepting no limits and making roomfor lateral thinking. “At Tech Mahindra, we willcontinue to dare to dream; our dreams have justbegun,” he said. As he received the award, headded, he remembered the day Tech Mahindraacquired Satyam Computer Services and gotthe ‘yes, we did it’ feeling.

The response of the winners was typical ofthe evening: The leading lights of the businessworld walked away with glittering trophies and,to the last person, each thanked his company,colleagues, customers and families for helpinghim to the top of the podium.

N Chandrasekaran, CEO & MD of TataConsultancy Services, adjudged the BestCompany of 40 Years, said he dedicated theaward to all TCSers, starting from FC Kohli to S Ramadorai — all his predecessors. “Westarted as a small outfit in 1986 in an industrythat was yet to be named. The journey fromthere has been incredible,” he said.

Pointing out that the recognition would“stay with him for a long time”, IndusInd BankMD & CEO Romesh Sobti, who received theBanker of the Year award, said the average ageof his bank’s employees was 32 years, and hethanked each employee “for carrying a CEOtwice his or her age”. The entire brass of thebank was present to give a standing ovation tothe CEO.

The other award winners also did

themselves proud with the quality of theiracceptance speeches. HDFC Mutual Fund’sChief Investment Officer Prashant Jain, whowon the Fund Manager (equity) award, talkedabout Indians’ obsession with gold. “In thepast 15 years, foreign institutional investors(FIIs) have put $150 billion in the Indian stockmarket. What have we done with thosedollars? We have bought gold worth $250billion in this period. While the Sensex hasreturned 15 per cent for the past 35 years(compound annual growth rate, or CAGR),gold has returned only eight per cent,” Jainsaid, adding the reason for replacing a 15 percent asset with an eight per cent one was poorfinancial literacy in India.

In a pre-recorded acceptance speech, N RNarayana Murthy, the recipient of the awardfor the Best Entrepreneur of 40 years,attributed his company’s success to settinghigh goals, benchmarking to global standards,putting the company’s interest ahead of

individuals’, following the best principles ofcorporate governance, and adhering to a set ofenduring values.

The function had its lighter moments, too.Vijay Shekhar Sharma, CMD of One97Communication, made a dash to the podiumwhen his organisation’s name was announcedas the Most Innovative Company of the Year.Sharma, whose company operates Paytm, hadarrived at the venue just in the nick of time.Breathing heavily, Sharma talked about thefascinating journey of the leading firm in theelectronic payment space and his ambition tomake it a financial services company. Paytmwas selected by a poll among senior editors ofBusiness Standard.

The corporate award winners were chosenby a distinguished jury, led by ICICI BankChairman K V Kamath. Apart from Nayar, Kaka,Mody and Memani, the star-studded jury alsoincluded Vodafone India Managing Director &CEO Marten Pieters.

The jury for choosing the Banker of the Yearaward was led by Subir Gokarn, former deputygovernor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI); theother members were Mahindra & MahindraDirector Bharat Doshi, Ican InvestmentAdvisors Chairman Anil Singhvi, State Bank ofIndia’s former managing director DiwakarGupta, and Ambit Group CEO (institutionalequities) Saurabh Mukherjea.

The jury for selecting the Fund Managers ofthe Year, led by G N Bajpai, former chairman ofSebi and LIC, comprised IL&FS Director &Group Chief Investment Officer VibhavKapoor, IndAsiaFund Advisors ChairmanPradip Shah, and Dhruva Advisors LLP CEODinesh Kanabar.

The enthusiasm of the award winners wasinfectious. L&T’s A M Naik, also a past awardwinner, said: “The BS awards are the mostsought after in corporate India because they aregiven purely on merit. That is why we cherishthe award L&T got a few years ago.”

(From left) RPG Enterprises Chairman Harsh Goenka, Tech Mahindra MD & CEO C P Gurnani, Kotak Mahindra Bank Executive Vice-Chairman and ManagingDirector Uday Kotak, IndusInd Bank MD & CEO Romesh Sobti and BJPspokesperson Shaina NC with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley

You (the Opposition parties) canonly delay reforms but cannotstop them. By obstructingchanges in the laws, do you wantto go back to the non-transparent process in resourcedistribution? I think that’sunacceptable to the new India

The ongoing coal and spectrumauctions proved the zero-losstheory floated by the previousgovernment was a myth and theexpected loss of ~1.86 lakh-croreestimated by the then CAG wassomehow modest

The birth of Business Standard in1975 was perhaps the only goodthing that happened that year,perhaps the most terrible year forthe country. But while companieshave come out of that regressivemindset, the political class hasn’t

The present government is veryclear about its road map toincrease growth and reducepoverty. There is still a hugeunderclass that is poor but hashigh aspiration to grow. It is thisclass that would build a newIndia

FMSPEAK

“The BS awards are the mostsought after in corporateIndia because they are givenpurely on merit. That’s whywe cherish the award L&T gota few years ago”

A M NAIK

Executive chairman, Larsen & Toubro

“Setting high goals, benchmarking to global standards, putting company’s interest ahead of individuals’,

following the best principles of corporate governance and adhering to enduring values have been Infosys’

success mantra”

N R NARAYANA MURTHY, BEST ENTREPRENEUR OF 40 YEARS

(in a pre-recorded acceptance speech)

“BS does a very crisp andprecise work with focus onthe winners and nobody else.The focus is on recognisingthe real issues rather thanmaking it too individualistic”

SANJAY NAYAR

CEO, KKR India

“We are very impressed withthe entrepreneurship thatwe saw in this year’s awardlist and recognition to theincreasing role of technologyin businesses”

NOSHIR KAKA

MD, McKinsey India

“(FM) Jaitley’s speecheloquently highlighted thatit’s a great pity for India if the path to economicdevelopment is going to beobstructed by the Opposition”

SAM BALSARA

CMD, Madison World

Company of the Year

Motherson SumiSystems Ltd

(Chairman VivekChaand Sehgal)

Best Company of 40 Years

Tata ConsultancyServices

(CEO & MD N Chandrasekaran)

Banker of the Year

Romesh Sobti, MD & CEO,

IndusInd Bank

Most InnovativeCompany of the Year

One97Communication

(CMD Vijay ShekharSharma)

Star PSU Power Grid

Corporation of IndiaLimited

(CMD R N Nayak)

Star MNCGlaxoSmithKline

Consumer Healthcare(Executive V-P Sales

Sidharth Singh receivedthe award on behalf of

MD Zubair Ahmed)

Star SMEeClerx

Services Ltd (CFO Rohitash

Gupta received theaward on behalf ofMD P D Mundhra)

Fund Manager(Equity)

Prashant Jain, Chief Investment

Officer, HDFCMutual Fund

Fund Manager(Debt)

Sudhir Agrawal,Fund Manager,

UTI Mutual Fund

RAISING A TOAST TO EXCELLENCE

The audience at the event PHOTOS BY SURYAKANT NIWATE & KAMLESH PEDNEKAR