At the time this overview was being written, any of several things could have gone wrong. Some were.
US President Donald Trump said the war with Iran could end “in the near future”. Hours after Israel struck Iran’s South Pars Gas Field on March 18, he said the US “knew nothing” about the attack and that Israel won’t attack the gas field again. However, he warned that if Iran struck Qatar again, the US “will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before”.
In the midst of this, the director of the US National Counterterrorism Center quit in protest against the war. And the Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell refused to cut interest rates, despite Trump’s public clamour for a cut, and signalled that he had no intention of resigning anytime soon.
Global crude oil prices were still above $100 to a barrel. The Indian rupee was exploring new historic lows. The country’s stock markets were getting back into the green only to falter again. Foreign exchange reserves had fallen in the week ending March 6 to $716.81 billion from $728.49 billion in the previous week, and Michael Patra, former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, wrote an article saying we needed reserves of $1 trillion to be able to intervene effectively in the currency market.
At a time like this, decisions must be taken swiftly, some of which can be tricky and painful. For instance, should a country loosen its purse strings to protect citizens from the inflationary fallout of the rising oil prices? Global investors will frown upon that. However, it will not be easy not to do so either, especially if elections are on the anvil and voters are suffering.
At a time like this, leadership is tested to the limit. And at a time like this, the best of leaders come to the fore.
Also watch: Forbes India Leadership Awards 2026: Meet the winners
This is what they were preparing for through their education and training and during the time when things were going well. This is when all the ‘vision’ and ‘strategy’ and ‘planning’ and power point presentations need to be measured against the reality of implementation, effectiveness and results. What is more, a leader must do all this while remaining calm and reassuring their people that things will get better.
This is what the Forbes India Leadership Awards, now in its 15th year, celebrates: The best, the brightest, and the most successful from India’s business, economy, entrepreneurship, philanthropy, etc. It is an acknowledgement of excellence, leadership, innovation, and taking hard decisions.
It is the culmination of a rigorous process that began months ago, with extensive research on qualitative and quantitative parameters. The long list of names, a dozen or so in each category, was narrowed down to about half a dozen for each. In early February, a high-powered jury headed by Anish Shah, the first non-family group CEO of Mahindra & Mahindra, met in Mumbai to choose the winners. The other jury members were some of the finest representatives of India Inc (listed here in alphabetical order by their first names): Amish Mehta (managing director and CEO, Crisil), Amit Chandra (chairperson, Bain Capital India), Kunal Shroff (managing partner, ChrysCapital), KVS Manian (managing director & CEO, Federal Bank), Namita Thapar (executive director, Emcure Pharmaceuticals), Ritu Arora (country head-India, Allianz Services), Sanjeev Krishnan (chairperson, PwC India), and Saugata Gupta (MD & CEO, Marico).
Venture Intelligence, which tracks private company financials, private equity transactions and mergers, helped with data. The results are in your hands: A celebration of the finest among us.
First Published: Mar 26, 2026, 14:05
(This story appears in the Mar 25, 2026 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, Click here.)