Inside the 2025 Forbes India Leadership Awards

1. Rizwan & Rekha Koita, co-founders & directors, Koita Foundation; 2. (L-R) Nakul Aggarwal & Ritesh Arora, co-founders, BrowserStack; 3. Varun Jaipuria, MD, Varun Beverages; 4. (L-R) Balasubramanian V, Anand Anandkumar & Santanu Datta, co-founders, Bugworks Research; 5. (L-R) Krunal Patel & Amrit Om Nayak, co-founders, Indra Water; 6. Rajesh Jejurikar, executive director and CEO (auto and farm sector), Mahindra & Mahindra; 7. Supam Maheshwari, MD & CEO, Brainbees Solutions; 8. Ashish Dhawan, founder & trustee, Central Square Foundation, and co-founder, Ashoka University; 9. Sanjay Sharma, CEO, Orkla India; 10. (L-R) Rahul Yadav, COO & Mohit Yadav, CEO, Minimalist; 11. Puneet Chhatwal, MD & CEO, IHCL Images: 1,2 &11: Bajirao Pawar for Forbes India; 3&7: Madhu Kapparath; 5,6,8 &10: Amit Verma; 9: Selvaprakash Lakshmanan for Forbes India

The Forbes India Leadership Awards (FILA), now in their 14th year, are an acknowledgement of corporate excellence, visionary leadership, innovation and taking hard decisions to make the business succeed. India is starting to see improved capacity utilisation—but only marginally—to 74.2 percent in the 2024 September-ended quarter from 74 percent in the corresponding quarter the year before, according to Reserve Bank of India OBICUS data. Local inflationary pressures are easing even as the threat of recession in some Western economies eases. But imported inflation is a concern as the rupee depreciates.

Revenue growth for the December-ended quarter for corporate India was in single digits, though profit levels improved. Statistically, India’s pace of growth is likely to expand by just 6.4 percent for the full fiscal ending March 2025. The growth in construction and infrastructure will continue to drive business and jobs. Private equity and venture capital funding to the startup ecosystem grew in 2024 and is expected to remain strong. Our distinguished jury used these themes to identify companies and business leaders worthy of corporate honours.

In the startup world, Minimalist emerged as a Promising Startup. By the time the FILA 2025 reportage was done, the beauty brand was acquired by Hindustan Unilever. Besides the quantitative data—operating performance and efficiency measures—we continued to recognise the skills of leaders in building institutions, such as Ashish Dhawan for building Ashoka University.

First-generation entrepreneur Supam Maheshwari stands out as the Entrepreneur of the Year for successfully scaling up baby products brand FirstCry and listing it. Indian Hotels is the Turnaround Star for strategically transforming itself into an agile, profit-making giant over the past three years.

Mahindra & Mahindra’s auto and farm sector CEO Rajesh Jejurikar won the CEO of the Year with strong innovation and risk-taking abilities to launch new electric origin SUVs.