NARA CHANDRABABU NAIDU Chief Minister, Andhra Pradesh

Only a chief executive Officer, not a politician, would have hit upon the idea of getting his state-capital to host an F1 race as part of an effort to get his state on a map. F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone's recent admission that Hyderabad will host an F1 race, The Indian Grand Prix in 2007 (and for six years after that), is the latest in a long and growing list of items of evidence that point to Chandrababu Naidu's standing as an astute CEO. F1 officials, say reports in the local press, have already identified around 1,400 acres of land in Gopanapally on the outskirts of Hyderabad as the setting for the Rs 1,100-crore project. Apart from the badge-value associated with getting on to the F1 circuit-today, only 17 cities in the world host these races-Naidu is hoping some of McKinsey & Company's projections about the economic benefits of hosting an F1 race come to pass. The specifics: The creation of 100,000 jobs and incremental tax revenue of Rs 41 crore.

Naidu, the consummate back-room politician who called the shots as general secretary of the Telugu Desam party founded by his late father-in-law and Telugu motion pic icon N.T. Rama Rao-he built his career, both as an actor and a politician, playing Hindu Gods on screen-has emerged, since 1995 when he took over as Chief Minister, India's most governance-focussed political leader. Naidu's approach to business and governance can probably be attributed to his experiences while serving as Director of the Andhra Pradesh Small Scale Industries Development Corporation between 1979 and 1983. Here, at close quarters, were living examples of what a closed economy could do to industrial competitiveness.

In 1999, The Economist, a newspaper that is usually pretty miserly with its praise wrote, "The sort of revolution Mr. Naidu is aiming for in Andhra Pradesh, a managerial, not an ideological one, is exactly what India needs." Power Point is more a part of this revolution than power politics and early on in his stint as Chief Minister, Naidu advertised his preference of being considered CEO of the state, and his proclivity for structured manager-style presentations.

Not surprisingly, when Microsoft was looking for a location for its first development centre in India, it was Hyderabad it chose. And when consulting firm McKinsey & Company, some of India's best-known CEOs, and a clutch of American B-schools decided to put down an Indian School of Business, it was Naidu's Hyderabad they decided on. And whether it was William Jefferson Clinton, Bill Gates, or Arun Netravalli, Naidu either played host to them at Hyderabad or met them elsewhere during their visits to India, his faithful IBM Think Pad (and presentation on why it made sense for anyone to invest in the state). Andhra Pradesh has also emerged the location of thriving pharmaceutical and biotech clusters. Since 1995, when Naidu came to power, Andhra Pradesh has jumped 20 ranks in the BT Gallup survey of The Best States for Business (the state was ranked #2 in 2003).

Like his counterpart S.M. Krishna in Karnataka, Naidu has been accused of focussing his energies on the state-capital to the exclusion of all else. The health of the state's power sector, the state of its finances, and an increasing number of suicides by farmers in the wake of drought have only reinforced this impression. Still, Naidu has played the development card well, using his party's standing as one of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's key allies in the Centre to extract concessions for his state. He has already become the longest-serving cm of Andhra Pradesh, and if he does win one more term in office, Naidu will probably look outside the state to further his career. After all, he is a mere 52-years-old, an adolescent in a world dominated by sexa- and septuagenarians.