Top 10 Corporate leaders- 2005

I remember thinking about doing my MBA a couple of years back, my family still wants me to pursue an MBA, but I have given up on that- yes totally, unless I sit someday post quarter life crisis, and decide that I need to make more money, but that doesnt look like it will be a priority and taking up to books again is not exactly some thing I am motivated to do, though in recent times I have started reading extensively, though not on the technical or the fictional side, more into biographies, autobiographies and philosophy. It is one of the best ways to relieve oneself from stress at work and personal life.

Now coming to the elite list I intended to create, it is a list of the most prominent Indian leaders amd entreprenuers this year. I have not considered including the 'old horses' like Azim Premji, Narayana Murthy, Rahul Bajaj, etc.

10. Ram Shriram- Making the first cut at no.10 on the list is a venture capitalist and one of the earliest investors in Google, he is still a member of the Google board of Directors. Ram counselled Google’s founders during the earliest days and has a book titled “Ram’s Book of Mistakes”. Google follows Ram's advice of hiring only the best, and makes hiring decisions after a gruelling four hour interview. Ram believes in hiring only the A people, Someone asked a good question: How did Shriram decide who are so-called “A” people? and his response- Grooming is a part of it. “I try to find out who their mothers are,” he said. If they are raised well, they’re more likely to make good citizens, employees and entrepreneurs. Shriram went to Loyola college in Chennai and later to UMich at Ann Arbor for an MBA

9. Malvinder Singh- At no.9 is Malvinder Singh, the President Pharmaceuticals and Executive Director of Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited (RLL), India's largest pharmaceutical company that also ranks among the top ten generic players in the world. Malvinder Singh is the elder son of the iconic Parvinder Singh who turned Ranbaxy from a middling Indian company into a growing multinational giant. Ranbaxy is India's pharmaceuticals giant, with ambitions to be a global major. Given the nature of the pharmaceuticals market, much of the growth will come from abroad. Malvinder has an MBA from Fuqua at Duke.

8. Lakshmi Narayanan- Making the list at no.8 is the CEO and president of Cognizant, a New Jersey based consulting firm. Lakshmi began his career at Tata Consultancy Services, growing through the ranks from developer, to technologist, to program manager, to business leader. He was a regional head of Tata in India when he joined Cognizant as CTO. Lakshmi has an MBA from IISc Bangalore.

7. Dayanidhi Maran- At no.7 is a young Harvard graduate, Dayanidhi Maran, a successful businessman- formerly the head of SCV is currently the Union minister for Communications & Information Technology, he is part of the Ivy league trio with pivotal portfolios in the central ministry's cabinet, Palaniappan Chidambaram(FM) and Manmohan Singh(PM) are the other two.(btw Manmohan was conferred a doctorate by Harvard adding to his Oxford/Cambridge Phd's) Dayanidhi has been doing a phenomenonal job and India has been taking rapid strides in the already flourishing tech sector.

6. Nandhan Mohan- At no.6 on the list is the youngest of the Infosys co-founders, Nandan is presently the CEO of Infosys, took over from Narayanamurthy in 2001 and has been leading the Indian I.T giant very efficiently. The firm seems to be raking up profits quarter after quarter, beating its revenues by nearly 40% each quarter. Nandan got his bachelors from the Indian Institute of Technology.

5. Anil Ambani- The younger of the Ambani brothers, the business magnate with political influence edges out his brother to make the list. Anil is the chairman of Reliance Capital, Reliance Infocomm, and Reliance Energy. His more recent moves includes a stake at 'Adlabs films' and is set to invest 100 crores in entertainment, extending the reach of India's largest conglomerste into entertainment. Anil is a graduate from the Wharton business school.

4. Vinod Khosla- The man with the midas touch, considered one of the most successful and influential personalities in Silicon Valley. He was one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems and is currently a general partner of the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, where he has been since 1986. Khosla is an IIT/Carnegie/Stanford pass out.

3. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw- Making the list at no.3 is the only woman on the list, and among the few women who were shortlisted. She is the founder of the Biotech major Biocon's Indian arm. When Kiran founded the pioneering biotech company, no one would work for her. Today she's the richest woman in India. She has a B.S. in zoology at the University of Bangalore and an M.S. in brewing from Ballarat College in Australia.

2. Shiv Nadar- Forbes magazine describes Nadar as a self-made software billionaire. Shiv Nadar restructured his $907 million (revenues) HCL Group, India's leading IT group, which fell prey to the global tech spending slowdown. Merged all software business into flagship HCL Technologies in a bid to shore up its stock price, off nealry 30% last year. Diluted his stake in computer education firm NIIT, a declining business,while his firm invested in IT joint ventures with British Telecom, Jones Apparel Group and Deutsche Bank. Spends most of his time in California, drumming up business. Nadar has a Bachelors in Engineering from PSG tech

1. Lakshmi N. Mittal- Mittal has been the most dominant Indian entrepreneur this year and aptly is numero uno on the list. Lakshmi N. Mittal is the Chairman and CEO of Mittal Steel Company. He founded the company in 1976 and in about a decade, Lakshmi Mittal built Ispat International from a wire rod manufacturer in Indonesia to the fourth largest steel producer in the world, largely through a series of strategic acquisitions. Mittal has a Bachelors degree in Commerce from St. Xaviers Calcutta.

The list of the final 25 contenders :

Mukesh Ambani - Reliance Industries
Anil Ambani - Reliance Infocomm
Kumaramangalam Birla- Aditya Birla Group
Dipak Jain - Kellogg B-School, Dean
Vivek Paul - Ex -Wipro
Phaneesh Murthy - I-flex, Ex- Infosys
Lakshmi Narayanan- Cognizant
Shiv Nadar - HCL
Nandan Mohan - Infosys
Ram Shriram - Google
Gururaj Deshpande - Sycamore
Vinod Khosla - Ex - Sun
Arun Netravali - Ex - AT&T Bell Labs
S Ramodorai - TCS
Dayanidhi Maran - IT Minister
Kalanidhi Maran - Sun Network
Malvinder Singh - Ranbaxy
Lakshmi Mittal - Mittal Steel
Sabeer Bhatia - Sify- Ex-Hotmail
Krishnan Suthandhiran - Best Medical
Barath Desai - Syntel
Padmashree Warrior - Motorola
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw - Biocon India
Rajiv Bajaj - Bajaj Auto
Sunil Mittal - Bharti Telecom