ET Corporate Excellence Awards: Manufacturing Claims Gold in 25th Anniversary Year

In the year that marks a decade of 'Make in India' and the Silver Jubilee of the ET Awards for Corporate Excellence, it was fitting that the prestigious 11-member jury selected multiple winners from the manufacturing sector, which is showing growing signs of revival.

Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of the $100 billion market-cap Aditya Birla Group, with ventures in metals, cement, textiles, and paints among others, was honored with the prestigious Business Leader of the Year award.

Mahindra & Mahindra, the automobile giant, emerges with the award for Company of the Year for its outstanding business and stock market performances.

With that, the independent jury, which Mukesh Ambani leads as Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, chose Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister for Railways, Electronics & Information Technology, and Information & Broadcasting, as Business Reformer of the Year by a free and fair consideration for his endeavors to set up an ecosystem of mobile and electronics manufacturing in India. 

Lifetime Achievement award was given to Venu Srinivasan, Chairman Emeritus of TVS Motor, in recognition of a lifetime of commitment to the success of two-wheeler manufacture and many other noteworthy achievements, including a remarkable track record in philanthropy. The jury took almost three hours deliberating for selecting winners from nine categories of awardees after thorough and serious debate. 

Vishakha Mulye, CEO, Aditya Birla Capital, who emerged winner from a strong pool of nominees, was Businesswoman of the Year for her role in repositioning the financial services company and driving it onto a high-growth trajectory.

When it came to the actual formal proceeding, Ambani instantly established himself by speaking on economy and business issues, and bringing other jury members into the discussion; their insights would have been of great value in providing a context from which decisions on the awards derived. The debate on nominees would typically be started by members who knew the nominees, sharing their inputs to guide the decision-making of other members as part of the jury ritual. It was for such collective jury appraisal that they would award companies solid performance, while recognising individual performance for making a difference or scaling a business, whose innovative ideas were game-changers, overcoming obstacles.

The other jury members are Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman, Aditya Birla Group; Uday Kotak, Founder, Kotak Mahindra Bank; Lakshmi Venu, Director, TAFE; Anish Shah, MD & CEO, Mahindra Group; Zia Mody, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, AZB & Partners; Preetha Reddy, Executive Vice Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals; Salil Parekh, MD & CEO, Infosys; Rohit Jawa, MD & CEO, Hindustan Unilever; Sriharsha Majety, Co-Founder & CEO, Swiggy; and Nicolas Berggruen, Founder, Berggruen Holdings.

"We were looking at really awarding it on merit and making sure that they shine a light on what other entrepreneurs can do in the coming 20 years to make India an economic superpower to achieve its true potential," Ambani said after the jury concluded its deliberations. The jury chose Fareed Zakaria as Global Indian of the Year in a consensus pick, moving away from global tech leaders who have dominated the list of past winners”.

To select the winners, the jury adopted a method comprising two steps. Firstly, the top two candidates were shortlisted out of the nominations that were made for each category. After this, the members of the panel engaged into deliberation about the nominees that got selected. In cases of indecision, a final secret vote is cast to determine the winner.

Judges who have personal interests in any of the nominees excused themselves completely from the particular category. For instance, Birla kept away from the discussions on Businessman of the Year, being a nominee and finally winner for that category, and on Businesswoman of the Year and Conscious Corporate discussion.

Lakshmi Venu excused herself from the entire Lifetime Achievement award since she had a nominated father, while Anish Shah excused himself while discussions went on for the Company of the Year category.

Peyush Bansal co-founder of Lenskart, was awarded as the Entrepreneur of the Year, for building a multinational omnichannel eyewear company. Targeting manufacturing, he is building a $200 million-sized factory in Telangana- which is ten times bigger than its Rajasthan factory- for Lenskart.

Zomato, the food delivery and quick commerce company was declared as the Emerging Company of the Year by the jury citing the swift pace of growth it had achieved with profitability in the last year. Grasim, another of the manufacturing giants, bagged a Conscious Corporate award for overcoming challenges in meeting the ESG standards such companies face.

"It was a thoughtful deliberation, befitting the 25th year of the ET Awards. It set the context for the future, representing the diversity of the economy," said Venu.