Microsoft chief Satya Nadella to head jury for ET Awards for Corporate Excellence

Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft Corporation, will head an 11-member jury to choose the winners of the 2014 edition of the ET Awards. Nadella, who became only the third leader of the software company in February, will head a panel whose members include some of India’s top industrialists, bankers and lawyers.

They include the elder statesman of Indian business KV Kamath, who’s chairman of ICICI Bank and lead independent director of Infosys. His fellow panelist Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of the Aditya Birla Group, has been a member of several past juries, as has Kamath.

Also on the panel, which will meet on Monday, September 29, are State Bank of India Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya, the first woman to helm India’s largest bank, and Dilip Shanghvi, MD of Sun Pharma, India’s most valuable pharma firm. Harish Salve, widely regarded as India’s top lawyer and the one man business leaders call when facing legal travails, will bring a valuable outsider’s perspective to the deliberations. Keeping him company is Zia Mody, one of India’s top corporate legal eagles and the founder of law firm AZB. Recognising the growing heft and profile of new economy firms, the 2014 jury has two representatives from this segment.

Sachin Bansal, the co-founder of Flipkart, India’s largest online retailer, will be on the jury.

As will Uday Shankar, who heads one of India’s largest media groups as the CEO of Star TV. Also on the jury is the head of one of India’s fastest-growing firms in the modern retail space, Raj Jain, the CEO of Bharti Retail, and Ravi Dhariwal, the CEO of Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd, the owner of the Times of India and the Economic Times. This star-studded jury will weigh the relative merits of the various nominees in each category and decide who wins India’s most prestigious business awards.

Standard Chartered Bank is the presenting sponsor for ET Awards for Corporate Excellence.