Some guys have all the luck. Just ask Nirvik Singh, CEO, Grey Worldwide India. This year, the 40-year-old launched Grey's second agency (G3) in the country, added 35 new accounts, including the prestigious 'India Shining' one from the Finance Ministry, and set up a research arm called Grey Cells. Heck, he even improved his golf handicap to a single digit. Now, the Hong Kong-based Media Magazine Asia thinks all that is so impressive that it has declared him Asian Advertising CEO of the Year. "I guess you can say the year's been good for us," quips Singh. Joining Trikaya Grey as a 26-year-old, Singh made CEO in eight years flat. He was instrumental in ensuring Trikaya's smooth transition into Grey Worldwide and its smart growth. Now, with G3, he's itching for some more. "People think I am losing it, but we can not only expand our advertising and research businesses but also explode our non-advertising based businesses such as pr and exhibitions," he says. 2004, here he comes.

Riding High

For long this magazine has maintained that TVS Motors' Venu Srinivasan is one of the most "under-sold" CEOs in the country. Now that his two-wheeler company's stock has crossed the Rs 1,000-mark (on December 11), BT stands vindicated. Not that we had anything to do with it; the credit is due entirely to the industrious Srinivasan. Two years ago when he broke off his joint venture with Suzuki, people were ready to write him off. But Srinivasan, 50, has roared back on the scene with his best-selling four-stroke Victor. Knowing Srinivasan, he's more likely to be thrilled about sales figures than stock price.

Speedy Gonsalves

B.V.R. Subbu drives his company the way he drives his silver blue Sonata: As fast as he safely can. Barely eight years ago, he left Tata Motors to join an upstart Korean car company. Today, thanks largely to its 49-year-old President, Hyundai Motor India is the second-largest car company (after Maruti), and last fortnight its 500,000th car (a bright red Santro Xing Automatic) rolled out from its assembly lines near Chennai. "I am kicked at having proved all the sceptics wrong and kicked about the speed at which we did it," says Subbu. Meanwhile, Subbu is already on to his next target: The million mark in another three years.

Citizen Green

It's not every day that an ecologist, an Indian at that, gets invited to deliver a Nobel Memorial Lecture-especially if it's also the first ever. But then Madhav Gadgil is no ordinary ecologist. The Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Professor is arguably the greatest ecologist in the country (if you hadn't heard about him until now, it speaks more about your GQ, green quotient, than his work). Earlier this year, he won the Volvo Environment Prize in recognition of outstanding work in the field of environment. Besides heading IISC' Centre for Ecological Science, Gadgil chairs the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel of Global Environment Facility based in Washington, D.C., USA. His message at the Nobel Memorial Lecture: Humans are the only prudent species on the planet that care about environment. Our message: Let's not prove him wrong.

New Year, New Job

Earlier this year, Rajeev Dubey put in his papers as the Managing Director of Rallis India after he failed to turn around the ailing agro-chemicals company, which is one of the oldest Tata entities. But Dubey won't have to spend the new year looking for another job; he's back in Bombay House's good books, and has been deputed to Tata Steel, where he'll serve as an advisor to CEO B. Muthuraman. While Dubey refused to comment on his appointment, which some describe as a rehabilitation, one hopes Jamshedpur will prove luckier for the 1975 alumnus of Tata Administrative Services.

Down, But Not Out

For a man fighting with one hand tied to his back, Rajeev Chandrasekhar can still deliver some masterful manoeuvres. Only in August this year, the Chairman of the cash-strapped BPL Communications, sprung a surprise when he pulled off a financial closure for his Rs 3,248-crore business plan to beef up his group's mobile services. Now, Chandrasekhar has surprised his critics all over again by buying out AT&T's stake in BPL Mobile, which provides cellular service in Maharashtra, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pondicherry. While BPL is mum on the price it paid for the stake, some analysts put the figure at over Rs 900 crore. Where did the money come from? "Finance is something I don't want to talk about," says Chandrasekhar. Given BPL's health, not all surprises coming in the future may be as good.

-Contributed by Kushan Mitra, Swati Prasad, Ananda Banerjee and Abir Pal