Forbes India 2021 Rewind: Our best covers of the year

Forbes India Leadership Awards

Every year, Forbes India celebrates the best in entrepreneurial and business leadership. In 2020-21, the Forbes India Leadership Awards (FILA) were different for many reasons, the most prominent being the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on businesses. It gave us adequate reason to tweak the template and introduce new categories that celebrate innovation, entrepreneurship and wealth, including philanthropy. Byju Raveendran was Entrepreneur of the Year for 2020-21.

Watch the virtual Forbes India Leadership Awards here

South Celebrity Special

Taking a step away from its core of entrepreneurship, innovation and leadership, Forbes India focuses entirely on celebrities and sportspersons one issue every year. In 2021, we did that edition differently too by putting the spotlight on the four industries down South—Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada. The three-cover special, starring actors Nayanthara, Dulquer Salmaan and Yash, also highlighted how storytelling and content consumption have changed with the proliferation of OTT platforms amid the pandemic. Read the full issue here

W-Power

 
At Forbes India, we believe that whenever a woman proves to be an outlier and emerges on top in a male-dominated playing field, there’s more reason to make a splash. The success stories that we feature—from the world of entrepreneurship, entertainment, sport, science and civil society, among others—are inspiring because every individual has fought several odds to reach the top. They inspire other women to break the mould, aspire and think big. Like every year, our W-Power issue was power-packed. Read it here

Roaring 50s

We’ve been made to believe that startup founders are young—in their mid-20s or thereabouts. However, in our Roaring 50s issue we’ve showed that age may just be a number in the journey to a multi-million figure. Many Indian founders aged over 40 and 50 have built entities worth over $1 billion. They bring with them a wealth of experience and a been-there-done-that-and-keen-to-do-more mindset. We featured a bunch of such successful entrepreneurs. On the cover was Nykaa’s Falguni Nayar, whose blockbuster IPO was the talk of town. Read all about it.  

TCS

Though the issue was our annual family business edition, our cover story was on Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), an Indian bellwether whose brand is the world’s third largest in value in its sector, after IBM and Accenture—and the fastest growing among those three. In market capitalisation, it is No. 2. Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO of TCS, believes the brand is doing a better job catching up with where the reality is. The story focuses on TCS’s approach to building an agile, optimised-for-business-value enterprise. Check out the full issue here.

Freshworks

Software as a service evangelist Girish Mathrubootham made it to our cover as Freshworks got listed on the Nasdaq. It was a landmark event for the Indian founder and 4,400 employees of the San Mateo, California-headquartered company. In an indication that he was taking fresh guard, Mathrubootham says that listing day is ‘Day Zero’. “The work begins now.” He sees Freshworks becoming for IT products what Infosys was for IT services when it IPOed almost two decades ago. Here's the complete issue