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| Guest of Honour: Ravi Shankar
Prasad addressing the audience |
One
could almost hear it. 'Oh, to be young and successful!' Murmured,
mused, mulled over by the ballroom gathering that evening at Mumbai's
Taj Mahal Hotel. The occasion was Business Today's first Young Super
Performer Award ceremony, held in association with HP India, and
wisps of white hair blended into tufts of black in the audience-among
them many of the who's who of business and finance, performers in
their own right, whether on this side of 40 or that.
That figure-40-was of critical importance,
a reference age point for everyone present, for Business Today was
here to honour those 'Below 40 and Above Everyone Else', as the
Award's catchline put it.
If envy was something to be proud of, Reliance
Industries' Vice-Chairman and Managing Director Anil Ambani, present
as chief guest, took the first opportunity of expressing the sentiment.
Had the award been instituted a bit earlier, he grinned, he would've
liked to have a shot at it. The Guest of Honour, Union Information
and Broadcasting minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said he was proud
that India's talented youth were finally making their mark. And
took the opportunity to add, in jest, that there should be a special
category with an age-limit relaxation-for politicians.
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YOUNG SUPER
PERFORMER/CEO
The able skipper: Sulajja Firodia Motwani, Joint Managing
Director, Kinetic Engineering receiving the award for 'Steering
her organisation towards Greater Glory' |
YOUNG SUPER
PERFORMER/ ENTREPRENEUR
The self-starter: R. Subramanian, Managing Director,
Subhiksha Trading Services, gets the award for 'Creating a Business
from Scratch and altering the rules of the game' |
YOUNG SUPER
PERFORMER/ IDEATOR
The cool seller: Prasoon Joshi, National Creative Director,
McCann Erickson, wins the battle of the brains by 'Owning the
Year's Biggest Idea' |
Mapping Achievement
Anyhow, the spotlight was on performance: the
very stuff that's feted and felicitated the world over. Nothing
special about that. But when performance comes from the young, that
too in a country as age-bound as India, it acquires a different
charm altogether. The charm was very much in evidence. And so, for
each of the three categories of CEO, Entrepreneur and Ideator.
The picks had not been easy. India is, after
all, a young country-and there were many claimants to each of the
three Young Super Performer titles. The selection process had been
reassuringly rigorous, with Business Today reporters from across
the country speaking to analysts, industry experts, human resource
professionals and corporate managers to put together a list of 72
high fliers below 40-the age at which life is actually supposed
to begin (you've been had, you might think, if you saw the list).
The choices were whittled down to five candidates
in each category. The final selection process involved a three-hour
brainstorming session with a high-profile panel of six-including
Revenue Secretary Vinita Rai, N.M. Rothschild's Munesh Khanna, Ma
Foi Management Consultants' K. Pandia Rajan and Asian Paints' Ashwin
Dani.
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| The event chronicled: Prasad releases
BT's Young Super Performers issue |
The Three Aces: Joshi, Motwani and Subramanian
came, saw and conquered |
Hailing Winners
And the winners? The CEO award went to Sulajja
Firodia Motwani, Joint Managing Director, Kinetic Engineering, for
'Steering her organisation to Greater Glory'.
The Entrepreneur award went to R. Subramanian,
Managing Director, Subhiksha Trading Services, for 'Creating a Business
from Scratch and altering the rules of the game'.
And the Ideator award went to Prasoon Joshi,
National Creative Director, McCann Erickson India, for 'Owning the
Year's Biggest Idea'.
It was time for a drum-roll, but not of the
usual kind. As percussionists Taufiq Qureshi and Sivamani performed
a superb jugalbandi to celebrate the success of India's young achievers,
the media got busy ferreting out their success secrets. Amid flashbulbs
and television cameras, Motwani was at her humblest best, dedicating-even
crediting-the award to her employees. "This award also goes
out to the millions across the country who are on their way to success,"
she said. Subramanian, likewise, expressed gratitude to several
others, including everybody behind his own business. "Awards
such as these, more than anything else, reinforce the belief the
stakeholders in the company-including my bankers, vendors and employees-have
placed on me," he said. Joshi too had thanks of assorted kinds
to hand around. Though, the adman that he is, he couldn't quite
resist the urge to sound the thunder for his next big hoped-for
exploit-some cool advertising for the Cannes festival coming up
in France.
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| Pin-up duo: Ambani shares
the table with Prasad |
Schmoozing: Yes Bank's Rana
Kapoor with Prasad |
Motwani & Joshi: Apples
of the shutterbug's eye |
Gaining Value
Among the Mumbai's corporate gliterrati who
were present at the ceremony, other than the distinguished panelists,
were to be spotted Ambit Corporate Finance's CEO Ashok Wadhwa, Cadbury's
Managing Director Bharat Puri, JM Morgan Stanley's Chairman Nimesh
Kampani, Essar Group Director Anshuman Ruia and Hunt Partners' Country
Manager Sunit Mehra.
Now, what would a famous headhunter be doing
at an event honouring young achievers? "Our business,"
retorted Mehra, "is about identifying achievers and especially
young achievers, more-so because success continuously defies age.
It was also important to be there to calibrate our benchmarks with
yours since you had such an eminent panel."
Others present at the event were HP India President
Balu Doraiswamy, pleased at the way it had all shaped up-for the
brand he represents. "We see a perfect fit between our corporate
values and culture, and what these awards stand for," said
Doraiswamy, "HP promotes lateral thinking, creativity and motivation
to achieve the impossible. These awards recognise individuals who
have achieved success across all these parameters."
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