Forbes India Announces its First Leadership Awards

Image: Dinesh Krishnan

Rama Bijapurkar emphasises a point to the other jury members - (From L-R)Janmejaya Sinha, Akhil Gupta, K.V. Kamath, Baba Kalyani

For the past several months, our editorial team has been working hard, in conjunction with our knowledge partners Grant Thornton, to lay the foundations of the Forbes India Leadership Awards.

We’ve instituted these distinctive annual awards to recognize transformational leadership across the entrepreneurial firmament, from start-ups, mid-sized firms to the more mature organizations of global scale. We’ve also picked a few categories that reflect our magazine’s charter. The awards recognize outstanding CEOs of Multinational companies, Capitalists with a conscience, Social entrepreneurs with sustainable models. Two prestigious categories: Lifetime achievement and the flagship award, The Forbes India Entrepreneur for the Year, recognize extraordinary individuals who have built enterprises that have had a deep, beneficial impact on the wider society.

After extensive research on qualitative and quantitative parameters, we built a long-list of nominees for each category. By mid-August, this list was whittled down we had a strong set of five nominees for each category. At a meeting in September, a high-powered jury, headed by Mr KV Kamath, the non-executive chairman of ICICI Bank and Infosys, picked a winner for each category. The other jury members were Mr Baba Kalyani, chairman and managing director, Bharat Forge, Mr Akhil Gupta, chairman, Blackstone Advisors India, Mr Janmajeya Sinha, chairman, Asia-Pacific, Boston Consulting Group and Ms Rama Bijapurkar, market strategy consultant and independent board member.
 
The awards will be presented on  October 21, 2011, amidst a galaxy of India’s best known entrepreneurs and CEOs. Entrepreneurial capitalism has been part of the Forbes DNA . Over the years, you can count on us to look for fresh contenders who exemplify this spirit and set new benchmarks of performance.