Early this year, when Mckinsey's Sankar Krishnan went to Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, on the firm's annual recruitment pilgrimage-he looks after all recruitment apart from heading the consumer goods and pharmaceuticals practices-the pre-placement talk ended up an all-nighter. Krishnan knows the feeling: he was once a hopeful himself, hired by McKinsey on its first foray into Indian B-school campuses in 1992 (and from IIM-A). Recruitment, the man claims, helps him keep his feet firmly on ground. Not that anyone can fault Krishnan for being carried away: he made global partner at the age of 32. He heard the good news one day, and next morning, he was on a 4.00 A.M red-eye to meet with a client. "McKinsey has a way of bringing you back to earth," laughs Krishnan who has had stints with the firm in Israel, London, Brussels, and other South Asian countries; more recently he worked with Indian pharma companies on possible biotech forays. An engineering graduate from Trivandrum U and the son of a professor-couple, Krishnan has long-term entrepreneurial dreams in the pure-research area. "It's not an immediate option, but who knows?"

-Seema Shukla

Ravi Mehrotra
41, Director & Chief Investment Officer, Franklin Templeton Investments
The Accidental Fund Manager
Because he played a part in building India's first and most successful private fund, that's why

He could have ended up heading a market research agency-but a one-year stint at Marketing and Business Associates motivated him to enroll in XLRI. He could have worked in P&G-that's the job he landed after XL-but he instead opted for a job with Bank of America, where he eventually ended up in treasury operations. And he could have ended up in financial services-post BankAm, he joined Prime Securities and grew it from a Rs 20 lakh company to a Rs 30 crore one in two years-but chucked it all up to join a start-up, Kothari Pioneer in 1993. "I joined at a fraction my salary because the start-up couldn't afford much," remembers Mehrotra. "I took a big risk." It paid off: Kothari Pioneer (later ITI Pioneer and now part of Templeton) emerged the pioneer in India's nascent mutual fund industry. Says D. Babu, who heads the personal finance research team at Cholamandalam Distribution Services, "Pioneer ITI was the first to set up a fund in 1993, The Blue Chip, that invested in large cap stocks. This set the trend for other equity investments. The Blue Chip still remains a very good record.'' Attribute part of that to Mehrotra's single-minded focus. "You can never count him out on the golf course," says long-time friend Shreekant Pande, a director with the UK's Newton Investment Management. Fore!

-Nitya Varadarajan

Darshan Mehta
41, President, Arvind Brands
The Loyal Troubleshooter
From accounting to advertising to durables to garments, Mehta has seen it all and lives to tell the tale.

It started innocuously. In 1985, Sanjay Lalbhai entered the family business and embarked on an ambitious diversification exercise. First, he set off to acquire Flying Machine, among the country's earliest jeans brands. He needed some help to structure the deal, an acquaintance suggested he meet with a Mumbai-based consultant with Price Waterhouse, Darshan Mehta, and thus was born an association that spans 17 years. Lalbhai liked the then 24-year-old Mehta's work and hired him. And Mehta, in his own words, became, "a sort of roving ambassador whose services were utilised to handle crises or tap opportunities." There were enough of both. Mehta played his part in Arvind's diversifications into consumer durables (Amtrex and Arvind Electronics) and financial services (Anagram). He also helped turn around ad agency Trikaya-founder Ravi Gupta was a close friend of Lalbhai-and even served on the board of Trikaya-client Real Value (remember the Vaccumiser). "The real caliber of a professional is a function of how he handles failures," says Mehta, who has had his share of them. "It takes guts to bounce back." Predictably, when Arvind Brands floundered in the face of competition from newer, more aggressive companies, it was Mehta, Lalbhai turned to. He's due for a slice of luck.

-Venkatesha Babu

Phaneesh Murthy
38, Former Head of Global Sales and Marketing, Infosys
The Other Murthy
Allegations of sexual harassment haven't dimmed Murthy's appeal to tech companies.

We'll keep this simple. Most people reckoned that IIM-A alum Phaneesh Murthy would one day head Infosys. Then came the sexual harassment suit over which he resigned but there are several Indian it companies that are willing to give an arm and a leg to have him on board. Not convinced? "There are a number of companies out there that would be more than happy to hire him as CEO," says Gautam Sinha of TVA Infotech. Here's waiting for Phaneesh Murthy Ver 2.0.

-Venkatesha Babu

Santrupt Misra
37, Director, Corporate Human Resources, Aditya Birla Group
The HR-method Man
The trained academic has played a large part in the transformation of the Aditya Birla group.

One office assistant, one stenographer, and a run-down computer in a dingy basement"-that's how Dr Misra remembers the hr department in the A.V. Birla Group when he signed on as Group Vice President, hr, in 1996. Six years on, and Misra is the youngest member after Chairman Kumarmangalam Birla (35) on the board of the Rs 27,000-crore group and Birla is happy with his hire, then a training manager in HLL. ''Dr Misra has played a key role in raising our brand equity as a preferred employer," says Birla. Along the way, the Aston Business School and TISS academic has reshuffled portfolios, hired new faces, and bid adieu to long-time Birla loyalists. The affable Misra, son of an Oriya schoolteacher, has worked his way up, inch by inch in the corporate world. And while success may have come early, he still remains a simple village lad-he first went to a formal school only in class 5. After all, how many hr heads you know still take their old college professor out to dinner every Teacher's Day?

-Abir Pal

Nachiket Mor
38, Executive Director, ICICI Bank
The Patient Financier
Mor's larger quest to instill order in the world has benefited his company.

CEO could have been his middle name. first, there's the education bit: Nachiket Mor has a MBA from IIM-A and a PhD in financial economics from U-Penn, Philadelphia. Then there's experience: a short stint with a Philadelphia-based hedge fund, Quantitative Financial Strategies, two tenures at ICICI, including a recent, longish stint at treasury operations. Today, Mor's responsibilities at the universal bank include managing relationships with non-individual customers, treasury operations, finance, economics, and derivatives research, and social initiatives. Finally, there's his current obsession: leadership. "How do I build a self-sustaining, replicating, organisation?" muses Mor, who is clearly set to go places within ICICI. That could even be the top slot-after K.V. Kamath.

-Roshni Jayakar

Sameer Nair
37, COO, Star India
Soldier Of Fortune
Wasn't it Jack Welch who said "Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will?" Well, try telling Nair that.

He's "not the regular corporate guy". If he wasn't coo of Star India, today's top dog in the channel business, Sameer Nair would probably be making movies. Don't be deluded into thinking that his stint in ad film-making is a natural precursor to this: Nair also studied hotel management, dabbled in advertising, and sold hot dogs in suburban Mumbai. It was in 1994 that Nair joined the Star Network, in charge of Star Movies. By 1999, he was bored enough to consider a six-month sabbatical to get back into film-making-this time with Amitabh Bachchan, with whom the Economics graduate from Chennai University had struck a fair rapport during his stint at the channel. Then, things started happening at Star India. The management was shaken up, and Nair suddenly found himself pitchforked as programming head of Star Plus. The film would have to wait. The tryst with AB didn't have to. Kaun Banega Crorepati started taking shape, and Nair insisted on getting Bachchan hosting the show, although many at Star felt roping in an "ageing superstar" wasn't the best way to go about it. There was also the small matter of convincing AB, who wasn't exactly brimming with enthusiasm. Long story cut short: KBC propelled Star from No 3 to No 1. And it didn't end there: Pre-KBC Star Plus had just 2-3 per cent viewership of Hindi Channels. Today it's around 80 per cent. "I want it to be 100 per cent,'' says Nair. Adds Peter Mukerjea, CEO, Star India: "Sameer's a great ally, and his biggest strength is his ability to combine people skills with a conscientious approach to work." But Mukerjea better keep an eagle eye on Nair. He still wants to make that movie. A photograph of Steven Spielberg in his office serves a resolute reminder of that dream.

-Brian Carvalho

Vineet Nayar
41, President & CEO, HCL Comnet and Executive Vice President, HCL Technologies
The Entrepreneurial Employee
Nayar's progress is proof that you don't have to change companies to change jobs

He's a HCL lifer but he has changed jobs several times. Vineet Nayar couldn't have done that at HLL, the other company that made him an offer on campus (XLRI, 1985). It's SA and the "promise of a challenge" swung his choice in favour of HCL. He was promoted five times in the first seven years, but by 1992, he was sure that "this was not what I wanted to do". After a talk with his mentor, HCL promoter Shiv Nadar, he spent 12 months in a brown study before coming up with the idea for HCL Comnet, today a 600-people Rs 200 crore company. By 1996, he was heading the start-up. And he is part of the strategy think-tank behind HCL Technologies (he also oversaw its hugely successful IPO in 2000). A workaholic by choice, Nayar is now working on building a successful remote-managed services industry out of India. "To create something," he grins, "you need to be compassionate within the organisation and aggressive outside." Adds K. Pandiarajan, Managing Director, Ma Foi, a Chennai-based head-hunting firm, "Vineet has imbibed the strong entrepreneurial streak of Shiv Nadar and added to that, his own institution-building capacity." It shows.

-Vinod Mahanta

Salil Parekh
38, CEO, CGE&Y India and COO, CGE&Y, Asia Pacific
A Locational Advantage
Parekh believes success is a function of being at the right place at the right time. He's done that in spades.

The first of august was a lucky day for Parekh, a man who believes success is 95 per cent luck. On that day, he was appointed Chief Operating Officer of Cap Gemini Ernst & Young's Asia Pacific practice. That region encompasses China, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, and India and accounts for revenues of $300 million (Rs 1,457 crore). If Parekh's targets for CGE&Y in India are any indication, he can't wait to get started: over the next three years he proposes to hike revenues and workforce a staggering 12 times. The firm's it focus suits Parekh: the aeronautical engineer from Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, holds a masters degree in Computer Science from Cornell U, and co-founded an India-based US-focused software firm, SoftTouch. Then came stints with Coopers & Lybrand, and Ernst and Young in the US, before he returned to India in 1999-a year before E&Y's consulting arm and Cap Gemini merged-as head of E&Y Consulting. If Parekh's plans work out, CGE&Y could become the largest multinational consulting firm in India by 2005. And he is not leaving that to chance.

-Abir Pal

Bobby Parikh
38, Managing Director, CEO & Partner, Ernst & Young
The Quiet Accountant
He survived Andersen, and ensured his colleagues at the firm's Indian ops did too.

At his first meeting after taking over as CEO of Arthur Andersen in 1998, baby-faced Bobby Parikh needed to be prodded to admit that yes, he was the new boss. A 17-year vet of the company-he signed on straight after graduation and then worked on becoming a chartered accountant-Parikh steered Andersen's Indian operations through the most troubled period of its existence. Left to fend for itself-its parent was busy dealing with paper shredders-the firm eventually merged with E&Y's Indian arm. Through the crisis, the man ensured that the firm retained its key employees . Parikh's non-aggressive demeanour is a big-plus in an industry replete with big egos. "He comes across as a mild person," says Ashok Wadhwa, CEO, Ambit Finance, and the man who hired Parikh in 1996, "but he is driven by a great sense of determination; the aggression is not in his personality, but in his manner of working." That's a bonus.

-Seema Shukla

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