Dynamos who power india

1. Dynamos Who Power India
GUTS & GLORY The ET Award winners took India Inc to new heights
while delivering on scale, solidity and quality with maturity & ability.
They display the capability to fight and evolve to accommodate
changing needs and standards

2. Contd…
When Uday Kotak spurned a safe job and instead opted to start a small bill
discounting firm with seed money from friends in the 1980s, he probably got a lot
of friendly advice about the need for safety and stability in life. How taking home a
salary cheque at the end of every month was better than the unpredictable life of
an entrepreneur with an uncertain shot at success. In 2007, the US Citizenship and
Immigration Services rejected the visa application of a Wharton graduate to stay on
in that country and start a business, a decision that forced the young man to return
home and start a business in India instead.
That business is now called Snapdeal and the entrepreneur is Kunal Bahl.
Had Kotak opted soaps and shampoo for then to sell soaps and shampoo for the
then Hindustan Lever over pursuing his entrepreneurial dreams or if Bahl had been
allowed to stay on in the US, the choices before a bunch of wise men seated
around a long table in Mumbai's Trident Hotel to decide the winners of The
Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence for 2015 would have been
different and perhaps also poorer.

3. Contd…
Fortunately for Kotak and Bahl, the choices they made and the detours forced upon them
by fate years ago are paying back -and how. Kotak was picked by the nine-member jury to
be conferred the Business Leader of the year award for 2015, at the end of an intense
brainstorming session that saw him pip another India Inc notable -Tata Consultancy
Services CEO N Chandrasekaran, who was spoken of highly for the dexterity with which he
has steered India's largest software exporter and the jewel in the Tata Group's crown.
“Uday has built something out of nothing,“ noted one jury member during the discussions
that lasted nearly two hours. Another member paid tribute to his ability to deliver value to
shareholders and to think and execute big, as exemplified by his Kotak Mahindra Bank's
recent acquisition of ING Vysya. A third member noted his credentials as a worthy
ambassador of India Inc at global forums and as a sounding board to many global CEOs
looking at India.
Scale, solidity, quality, maturity and ability to deliver were some of the buzzwords that
figured prominently during the jury discussions steered by two of India Inc's stalwarts -
Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla and Bharti Group chief Sunil Mittal.

4. Contd…
Other members of the jury included SoftBank President Nikesh Arora, HDFC Bank
MD Aditya Puri, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, Snapdeal founder Kunal Bahl, Ola's
Bhavish Aggarwal, top corporate lawyer Cyril Shroff and Silicon Valley investor
Vinod Dham. Birla and Mittal stepped in to steer the meeting after Jury Chairman
Vittorio Colao of Vodafone -who had come to Mumbai for the jury discussions -was
unable to attend due to a sudden illness.
The ET Awards for Corporate Excellence are easily India's top business accolades,
and seek to celebrate visionary leadership, exemplary performance and the
promise of future greatness. Past winners have included the who's who of Indian
industry, all of them picked by a group of illustrious peers and other high achievers.
At Friday's meeting, the jury had to pick winners in a total of ten categories, and
during the course of the proceedings they collectively decided not to award a Best
Startup of the year for 2015 -as an award of this name had been given to Ola at the
recent Jio Economic Times Startup Awards on October 12.

5. Contd…
The meeting also saw three members of the jury in contention for awards, and two of
them in the end won in two categories, but not before they opted out of the proceedings
so the rest of the jury could frankly discuss their suitability.
Kunal Bahl was one such, winning the Entrepreneur of the Year award, pipping a raft of
posterboys of India's white-hot startup world as the jury recognised what one member
termed was his “remarkable maturity“ and skill in building Snapdeal into one of India's top
three e-tailers. One jury member noted how Bahl had recently managed to raise money
from top global investors at a valuation of $5.5 billion while another quoted a senior
bureaucrat as saying, “Kunal is the next Sunil Mittal“. The jury also discussed Vijay Shekhar
Sharma of Snapdeal rival Paytm and Bhavish Aggarwal of Ola, but in the end went with
Kunal.
Hindustan Unilever, one of the country's biggest multinationals, won the Company of the
Year award, with the discussion swinging between it, Lupin and Axis Bank. But the jury
finally settled for HUL, choosing its size, consistent track record, strong govern ance
processes and its ability to soldier on with a strong array of brands in a tough market.

6. Contd…
“Sanjiv has steered HUL well from where it was since taking charge,“ noted one jury
member, referring to the efforts of Sanjiv Mehta, HUL's CEO, who took up the job at a
tough time. The doyen of the Indian software services industry and one of the architects of
TCS' stunning growth, S Ramadorai, won the Lifetime Achievement award. “Ram is the rare
person who has switched seamlessly from the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) to the
NDA (National Democratic Alliance),“ one juror said, referring to the Modi government's
decision to continue with him to lead its ambitious skills development agenda.
Eicher Motors, led by Siddhartha Lal, was the top Emerging Company of the year. One jury
member noted that Eicher was an old company that had “re-emerged“, pointing to the
difficult transformation it went through when it shed its tractor business. When one juror
expressed doubts if Eicher was overly dependent on just one kind of product -the Royal
Enfield motorcycles, another said it was not unusual. “The world's largest company (Apple)
is also dependent on one product,“ this person remarked, and the rest of the jury agreed.
Piyush Goyal, minister of state (independent charge) for coal and power, won the Business
Reformer of the year award. The jury felt his ability to get things done in a complex and
highly regulated industry merited this award. It lauded him for efficiently conducting the
coal auctions.

7. Contd…
“For the first time in 20 years, there's no shortage of coal,“ said one juror, with
another saying Goyal was “close to solving the discoms (power distribution
companies) problem“ and power availability was poised to improve sharply.
Nikesh Arora of SoftBank easily won the Global Indian award beating Prem Watsa
and Google's Sundar Pichai. The jury noted his work in recognising startups in India
and the work he has done in mentoring and scaling them up. Jurors spoke of
Arora's “tremendous track record“ at Google before joining SoftBank. Others
praised how he was an excellent mentor to entrepreneurs, spending long hours
with teams of his investee companies. His pick was in the end a unanimous choice.
Another unanimous choice was Amitabh Kant, the secretary in the department of
industrial policy and promotion and one of the Modi government's most visible
bureau crats. The jury picked him as its for the Policy Change Agent award, with
members across the board lavishing praise on him. “He has done something,“ said
one, while another noted, “He's a problem solver. He's very unlike a bureaucrat.“

8. Contd…
Infosys was selected the Corporate Citizen of the year, with the jury
lauding the “quality of its effort“ along with the scale. Among the
shortlisted contenders, Infosys had the top spend at ` . 243 crore, most
of it education-related.
This year's winners have something in common that has made them
truly successful. They have the ability to fight, change, adapt and
evolve to accommodate changing needs and standards. They also don't
give up easily and are not scared of challenges and opposition -all of
these hallmarks of effective leadership. That is what makes them
leaders and worthy winners of India's finest corporate accolades.

9. For details and bookings contact:-
Parveen Kumar Chadha… THINK TANK
(Founder and C.E.O of Saxbee Consultants & Other-Mother
marketingandcommunicationconsultants.com)
Email :-saxbeeconsultants@gmail.com
Mobile No. +91-9818308353
Address:-First Floor G-20(A), Kirti Nagar, New Delhi India Postal Code-110015