EY announces finalists for Entrepreneur of the Year awards

The finalists will be felicitated at a celebratory banquet to be held on February 11 in Mumbai

EY, the global professional services organisation, on Wednesday announced the selection of 18 of the country’s most innovative business leaders as finalists for the 17th Entrepreneur of the Year — India 2015.

The finalists include R S Agarwal, executive chairman, and R S Goenka, whole time director, Emami Ltd; S K Arya, chairman, JBM Group; Anand Deshpande, chairman & managing director and chief executive officer, Persistent Systems; Ramachandra N Galla, chairman, Amara Raja Batteries; Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, CMD, Bandhan Financial Services; Rajeev Gopalakrishnan, group managing director - South Asia, Bata India; Vinita Gupta, CEO, and Nilesh Gupta, MD, Lupin Ltd,  Sabu M Jacob, MD, Kitex Garments.

The other finalists are Siddhartha Lal, MD & CEO, Eicher Motors; Arvind Lal, CMD, and Om Manchanda, Dr Lal PathLabs; Samir Mehta, chairman, Torrent Pharmaceuticals; Krishnakumar Natarajan, CEO and MD, Mindtree Ltd; Sridhar Pinnapureddy, founder and CEO, CtrlS Datacenters; Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder & CEO, One97 Communications (Paytm) and Romesh Sobti, MD and CEO, IndusInd Bank. The finalists have been selected from 250 nominations by an eminent jury.  They will be felicitated at a grand celebratory banquet to be held on February 11 in Mumbai.

F C Kohli, former vice-chairman of Tata Consultancy Services will be honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his invaluable contributions to the inception and growth of the Indian information technolgy and software exports industry. He is also a recipient of the Padma Bhushan, India’s third highest civilian honour, for his contributions to the Indian industry.

The 11-member jury was led by Adi Godrej, chairman, Godrej Group. The winners will be announced across several categories while the national winner will represent India at the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year awards in Monte Carlo from June 7-12.

Rajiv Memani, chairman, EY India, said, “The finalists this year represent a cross-section of industries from traditional to new-age businesses, but are all very customer-focused and innovative in approach. Many of them have also successfully turned around businesses.” The jury considered a host of criterion, including the nominee’s entrepreneurial spirit, recent financial performance, strategic direction, product or service innovation, leadership including personal integrity and risk-taking, values and key employee initiatives, and involvement with the community.

Former award winners have included Uday Kotak (Kotak Mahindra Bank), Rahul Bhatia (IndiGo), N R Narayana Murthy (Infosys), Ratan Tata (Tata Group), Adi Godrej (Godrej Group), Mukesh D Ambani (Reliance), Sunil Bharti Mittal (Bharti Group), Kumar Mangalam Birla (Aditya Birla Group), Subhash Chandra (Zee Telefilms), Anil Agarwal (Vedanta), Tulsi Tanti (Suzlon), Anand Mahindra (M&M) and Dilip Shanghvi (Sun Pharmaceuticals).