Up north to down south

The star wattage of the ET Awards for Corporate Excellence is such that it draws CEOs like a magnet from all parts of the country. This year was no exception, with more than 200 occupants of corner rooms jetting in from all over India to Mumbai for the Big Night.

From Delhi, there was Ranbaxy CEO Malvinder Singh with his younger brother and Fortis Healthcare CEO Shivinder Singh, Hero Honda MD Pawan Munjal, PepsiCo India chairman Rajeev Bakshi, IOC chairman Sarthak Behuria, Ernst & Young CEO Rajiv Memani, Chrys Capital senior MD Ashish Dhawan, and Transearch co-CEO Atul Vohra. From Kolkata came National Aluminium Company CMD CR Pradhan, Duncan Goenka group chairman GP Goenka, and Haldia Petrochemicals MD Swapan Bhowmick.

The CEO contingent from Bangalore included Texas Instruments MD Bobby Mitra, Tommy Hilfiger CEO Sailesh Chaturvedi, Dell Computers CEO Romi Malhotra, and Tesco HSC CEO Meena Ganesh. Chennai was represented by Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance MD Antony Jacob and Chennai Petroleum MD KK Acharya. From Hyderabad came Dr Reddy’s Laboratories chairman Anji Reddy.
Without exception, all the outstation CEOs felt the evening was worth the effort of flying to Mumbai. Said Malvinder Singh: “It was a very special evening.

I thought the PM gave the best speech of the evening. It was rich in content.” Added Shivinder: “All the speakers were eloquent and the speeches short and crisp. So, the takeaways were greater.” According to Mr Goenka, all the speakers were in top form and India Inc heard what it wanted to hear. “Prime minister, finance minister — all the key policy makers were present. It is not every time that one gets to hear a galaxy of policy makers from the same platform,” he said.

Pepsi’s India boss, Rajeev Bakshi felt the content mix of the evening was meaningful and the focused session helped make it engaging for the audience. “While the finance minister celebrated the past more, the best part of the evening was the PM’s speech,” he said. For Pawan Munjal, Montek Singh Ahluwalia’s and P Chidambaram’s speeches were the best.