Kiran Mazumdar Shaw

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw
Personal Profile
Date of Birth: March 23, 1953
Zodiac Sign: Aries
Place of Birth: Bangalore, India
Sex: Female
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Brown
Nationality: Indian
Education: Bishop Cotton Girls School, Bangalore
Mount Carmel College, Bangalore
Ballarat Institute of Advanced Education
Achievement:
Chairman & Managing Director of Biocon Ltd; Felicitated with Padmashri (1989) and Padma Bhushan (2005). Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is the Chairman & Managing Director of Biocon Ltd, India's biggest biotechnology company. In 2004, she became India's richest woman. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw was born on March 23, 1953 in Bangalore. She had her schooling at Bishop Cotton Girls School and Mount Carmel College at Bangalore. After doing completing her B.Sc. in Zoology from Bangalore University in 1973, she went to Ballarat University in Melbourne, Australia and qualified as a master brewer. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw started her professional career as trainee brewer in Carlton & United Beverages in 1974. In 1978, she joined as Trainee Manager with Biocon Biochemicals Limited in Ireland. In the same year, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw founded Biocon India in collaboration with Biocon Biochemicals Limited, with a capital of Rs.10,000. She initially faced many problems regarding funds for her business. Banks were hesitant to give loan to her as biotechnology was a totally new field at that point of time and she was a woman entrepreneur, which was a rare phenomenon. Biocon's initial operation was to extract an enzyme from papaya. Under Kiran Mazumdar Shaw's stewardship Biocon transformed from an industrial enzymes company to an integrated biopharmaceutical company with strategic research initiatives. Today, Biocon is recognised as India's pioneering biotech enterprise. In 2004, Biocon came up with an IPO and the issue was over-subscribed by over 30 times. Post-IPO, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw held close to 40% of the stock of the company and was regarded as India's richest woman with an estimated worth of Rs. 2,100 crore.Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is the recipient of several prestigious awards. These include ET Businesswoman of the Year, Best Woman Entrepreneur, Model Employer, Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Life Sciences & Healthcare, Leading Exporter, Outstanding Citizen, Technology Pioneer, etc. Government of India also felicitated her with Padmashri (1989) and Padma Bhushan (2005).

A successful technocrat of global standing, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw heads India’s leading Biotechnology enterprise, Biocon. She is highly respected in the corporate world and has been recently voted by Nature Biotechnology as The Most Influential in Bio-business person outside Europe and USA. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw received a graduate honours degree in Zoology from Bangalore University (1973) and qualified as a Master Brewer from Ballarat University, Australia (1975). Kiran Mazumdar Shaw also received an honorary Doctorate of Science in 2004, from her alma mater, Ballarat University, in recognition of her pre-eminent contributions to the field of Biotechnology.
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw has also been awarded honarary doctorates from University of Abertay, Dundee, U.K. (2007), University of Glasgow, U.K. (2008) and Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, U.K. (2008).Kiran Mazumdar Shaw chairs Karnataka's Vision Group on Biotechnology and also served on the Board of Science Foundation, Ireland. She presently serves on the Advisory Council of the Government’s Department of Biotechnology where she has been instrumental in bringing government, industry and academia together, to chart a clear and progressive growth path for Biotechnology in India. Most recently, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw has been invited to join the Prime Minister’s Council on Trade & Industry in India and the US-India CEO Forum.
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is the recipient of several prestigious awards including the ET Businesswoman of the Year, Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Life Sciences & Healthcare, Technology Pioneer, etc. Her most cherished awards are the national awards, PADMASHRI (1989) and PADMA BHUSHAN (2005) presented to her by the President of India, for her pioneering efforts in Industrial Biotechnology.
Under her stewardship, Biocon has evolved from its inception in 1978 as an industrial enzymes company to a fully integrated Bio-pharmaceutical enterprise encompassing a well balanced business portfolio of products and services with a research focus on Diabetes, Oncology and Auto-immune disease. During this transition, Biocon has established 2 subsidiaries: Syngene (1994) to provide development support services for discovery research and Clinigene (2000) to cater to services in clinical development. A leading US trade publication, Med Ad News, in its 2007 listings has ranked Biocon 20th amongst the leading biotechnology companies in the world and the 7th largest Biotech employer globally.
Awards
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw
2005: Padma Bhushan Award
2006: Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award
2005: Lifetime Achievement Award from Indian Chamber of Commerce
2004: Whirlpool GR8 Women award for Science and Technology
1987: Outstanding Young Person Award by Jaycees
1983: Rotary Award for the Best Model Employer
1983: Outstanding Contribution Award (AWAKE)

M S Banga

Introduction

Manvinder Singh Banga is the ex-CEO of Hindustan Lever Limited, the Indian subsidiary of Unilever, and the largest FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) company in India. In February 2005, he was elevated to the newly formed Unilever Executive (UEX) as worldwide president of the Foods business (which accounts for 57% of Unilever's global revenue). In April 2008, he was given additional responsibility for the global Home & Personal Care (HPC) business, assuming the title of President, Foods and Home & Personal Care. He is a Non-Executive Director on the Board of Thomson Reuters, and was awarded the Padma Bhushan - one of India's highest civilian honours - in 2010.
Mr Banga is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India's premier management education institute.

Profile of Manvinder Singh Banga

He was born on October 31, 1954 in Shimla to Jaswant and Harbhajan Singh Banga. His father was a general in the Indian Army. Early childhood saw Manvinder Singh (better known as Vindi) crisscross the country, living in small villages and larger towns, wherever his father was posted. Schooling however was a more settled affair, and he attended Delhi Public School, going on to graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 1975 with a gold medal and a BTech degree in Mechanical Engineering. From Delhi he moved to Ahmadabad to study at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM-A), where he met his wife, Kamini. Here too Vindi earned a gold medal.



Achievement of Manvinder Singh Banga

Soon after leaving IIM-A, he joined Hindustan Lever as a management trainee. The FMCG giant had just introduced the concept of rural training for new hires, and Vindi was among the earliest to be inducted through the program. Back behind a desk, he quickly proved himself. Through the late 1980s, Vindi was given three out-of-turn promotions, catapulting him to the board of Hindustan Lever at age 41. Vindi impressed his superiors with his intellect. "He was the rare combination of intuition and analytical ability," Saurav Adhikari, president of HCL's Net business and Vindi's junior in Hindustan Lever in the 1980s, was once reported as saying. Vindi's clinical thinking was evident in 1997 when he and his team grappled with the problem of how to upgrade the Surf franchise. The result was a runaway success, and International Surf Excel went on to ward off rival Procter & Gamble's threat (Ariel) in the laundry detergent business.
Ironically, a few years earlier, in 1992, Hindustan Lever almost lost Vindi, when he signed on with Heinz as its India CEO. Keki Dadiseth, then the personnel director, who along with the Chairman SM Datta, managed to lure Vindi back. After Datta's term was over, Dadiseth moved up the ladder to become HLL Chairman, and in November 1998, Vindi moved to London for a sixteen month stint at Unilever UK, not only to learn about the latest management trends and to familiarize himself with the various parts of the global Lever empire, but also to be groomed as the next chairman of Hindustan Lever. Traditionally, every year, the Unilever leadership brings together the best talent in every country in which it operates, both to introduce local leaders to each other, as also to assess whom among them could be candidates for the Unilever chairmanship. In May 2000, Vindi returned to India as chairman of one of India's most respected companies.
He presided over HLL at a difficult time in the Indian FMCG industry. A general economic slowdown as well as heavy competition and price-cutting measures from HLL's rival Procter & Gamble, meant that HLL revenues and profits stopped seeing the double-digit growth they had under his predecessor Keki Dadiseth. Banga also implemented the Unilever Power Brand strategy of trimming HLL's vast portfolio of brands and singling out the core high-performers, with an aim to increasing focus and performance. This strategy also had mixed success.
In April 2004, HLL announced that it would replicate Unilever's organizational structure by splitting into two separate divisions, Foods, and Home & Personal Care (HPC). As part of this reorganization, Banga was made non-executive chairman of HLL, and also given additional responsibility as business group president of Unilever's $6 billion Asia HPC business.
In February 2005, as part of a major reorganization of Unilever's upper management, Banga was elevated to the Unilever Executive, where he currently serves as the global head of the Foods division.
On November 22, 2006, Unilever announced plans to reshape its Foods R&D organization in Europe, in order to 'further enable differentiated innovation'. The reorganization is part of the One Unilever programme designed to increase the leverage of its scale, improve market competitiveness and create a more cost-competitive structure. The announcement followed an extensive Science & Technology Review led by Banga, who said "The review showed that we have great people and strong capabilities. However, it also showed that by organising ourselves so that we could leverage our scale and play to our strengths we could improve our market competitiveness. By getting the benefits of focus and synergies I am convinced that today's announcement will make a significant difference to our innovation delivery."
In 2008, he was given additional responsibility for the Home and Personal Care Division, assuming the title of President, Foods and Home & Personal Care.
He is a Non-Executive Director on the Board of Thomson Reuters, and was awarded the Padma Bhushan - one of India's highest civilian honours - in 2010.

Chanda Kochhar

Born November 17, 1961
Occupation CEO and MD, ICICI Bank
Children A son and a daughter

Chanda Kochhar (born November 17, 1961) is currently the Managing Director (MD) of ICICI Bank and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). ICICI Bank is India's largest private bank and overall second largest bank in the country. She also heads the Corporate Centre of ICICI Bank. Kochhar has also consistently figured in Fortune's list of "Most Powerful Women in Business" since 2005. In 2009, she debuted at number 20 in the Forbes "World's 100 Most Powerful Women list".

Personal life
Chanda Kochhar was born in Jodhpur, Rajasthan and raised in Jaipur, Rajasthan. She then moved to Mumbai, where she joined Jai Hind College for a Bachelor of Arts degree. Kochhar graduated from the College in 1982 and then pursued MBA and Cost Accountancy(ICWAI). Later, she acquired the Masters Degree in Management Studies from the prestigious Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai. Kochhar received the Wockhardt Gold Medal for Excellence in Management Studies as well as the J. N. Bose Gold Medal in Cost Accountancy for highest marks in the same year. Kochhar currently resides in Mumbai, and is married. She has two children, a son and a daughter.
Education & Certifications
Mrs. Kochhar joined Jaihind College for a Bachelors Degree in Arts and after graduating in 1982, completed her MBA and Cost Accountancy. She did her Masters in Management Studies (Finance) from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai and topped her batch and received the Wockhardt Gold Medal for Excellence in Management Studies. In Cost Accountancy, she received the J. N. Bose Gold Medal for highest marks in that year.

Career
1984–1993
In 1984, Chanda Kochhar joined "The Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India Ltd" or ICICI Ltd. as a Management trainee after her Masters. In her early years in ICICI, she handled Project Appraisal and Monitoring and projects in various industries like Petrochemicals, Textile, Paper and Cement.
1993–2006
In 1993, Kochhar was sent to ICICI bank as part of a core team to set the bank. She was promoted to Assistant General Manager in 1994 and then to Deputy General Manager in 1996. In 1996, Kochhar headed the newly formed the Infrastructure Industry Group of ICICI, which aimed "to create dedicated industry expertise in the areas of Power, Telecom and Transportation". In 1998, she was promoted as the General Manager and headed ICICI's “Major Client Group”, which handled relationships with ICICI's top 200 clients. In 1999, she also handled the Strategy and E-commerce divisions of ICICI. Under Kochhar's leadership, ICICI bank started the Retail business in July 2000 and emerged the largest retail financer in India, in the next five years. In April 2001, she took over as Executive Director, heading the in ICICI Bank.
2006–present
In April 2006, Chanda Kochhar was appointed as Deputy Managing Director of ICICI Bank. She managed the Corporate and Retail banking business of ICICI Bank. From October 2006 to October 2007, she handled the International and Corporate businesses of ICICI Bank. From October 2007 to April 2009, Kochhar was also the bank's Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Joint Managing Director (JMD) and the official spokesperson. She also headed the Corporate Centre of ICICI Bank. She is also a director of different ICICI group companies. She is the chairperson of ICICI Bank Eurasia Limited Liability Company and ICICI Investment Management Company Limited. Kochhar is the Vice-Chairperson of ICICI Bank UK PLC and ICICI Bank Canada. She is a director in ICICI International Limited and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Ltd. and part of the Governing Council in The ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth-Member.
Kochhar is CEO and MD of ICICI Bank from May 2009 for a period of five years. She succeeds K. V. Kamath, who was CEO of the bank since 1996.

Ms. Chanda D. Kochhar is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Bank Limited. She began her career with ICICI as a Management Trainee in 1984 and has thereon successfully risen through the ranks by handling multidimensional assignments and heading all the major functions in the Bank at various points in time.
In 1993 when ICICI decided to enter commercial banking, she was deputed to ICICI Bank as a part of the core team to set up the bank. When ICICI set up the Infrastructure Industry Group in 1996 to create dedicated industry expertise in the areas of Power, Telecom and Transportation sector, she was handpicked and made incharge of the Infrastructure Industry Group. Further in 1998, when ICICI created the ”Major Client Group“ to handle the relationships with the top 200 clients of ICICI, she was promoted as General Manager and was made the head of the Major Clients Group. In the year 1999 she simultaneously started handling the strategy and E-commerce divisions of ICICI. In July 2000, she was chosen to head the Retail Finance division of ICICI and has been instrumental in scaling up the business. In April 2001, she was promoted as an Executive Director, heading the retail business in the Bank. Having joined it during its nascent stage, her strategic thinking and skills to convert challenges into opportunities ensured that within a short span of around 5 years ICICI Bank emerged as the largest retail financer in India. In the process of transforming a small bank into the largest private sector bank in the country, within a decade of its inception, the various steps taken by her also shaped the retail finance industry in India.
In April 2006, she was appointed as the Deputy Managing Director of ICICI Bank, with responsibility for both Corporate and Retail banking business of ICICI Bank and from October 2006 to October 2007, she handled the International and Corporate businesses of ICICI Bank. Once again under her leadership, International banking was the fastest growing businesses within the Bank aiming to cater to the cross-border needs of clients.
In October 2007, she was appointed as the Joint Managing Director & CFO. She was heading the Corporate Centre, was the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and was also the official spokesperson for ICICI Bank. In addition to finance, planning and communications; her responsibilities included the global treasury, principal investments & trading, risk management and legal functions. She was also responsible for day-to-day guidance and administrative matters relating to the compliance and internal audit functions.
Awards
Under the leadership of Ms. Kochhar ICICI Bank had won The Asian Banker - “Best Retail Bank in India“award for five consecutive years from the year 2001 to 2005. As recognition of her contribution to establish ICICI Bank as a leading player in the banking industry Ms. Kochhar has also been:
- Ranked 20th in the Forbe's list of Most Powerful Women in the World, 2009.
- Ranked 25th in the Fortune’s List of Most Powerful Women in Business, 2008.
- Featured in the list of 25 most powerful women leaders in Business Today, 2008.
- Selected as ‘Rising Star Award’ for Global Awards 2006 by Retail Banker International.
- Awarded Business Woman of the Year 2005 by The Economic Times of India.
- Selected as Retail Banker of the Year 2004 (Asia-Pacific region) by The Asian Banker from amongst prominent retail bankers in the Asia Pacific region

Recognition
Under Kochhar's leadership, ICICI Bank won the “Best Retail Bank in India” award in 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2005 and “Excellence in Retail Banking Award” in 2002; both awards were given by the The Asian Banker. Kochhar personally was awarded "Retail Banker of the Year 2004 (Asia-Pacific region)" by the Asian Banker, "Business Woman of the Year 2005" by The Economic Times and "Rising Star Award" for Global Awards 2006 by Retail Banker International. Kochhar has also consistently figured in Fortune's list of "Most Powerful Women in Business" since 2005. She climbed up the list debuting with the 47th position in 2005, moving up 10 spots to 37 in 2006 and then to 33 in 2007. In the 2008 list, Kochhar features at the 25th spot. In 2009, she debuted at number 20 in the Forbes "World's 100 Most Powerful Women list". She is the second Indian in the list behind the ruling Indian National Congressparty chief Sonia Gandhi at number 13.

LAKSHMI NIWAS MITTAL

Lakshmi Niwas Mittal born 15 June 1950 is an Indian born industrialist based in the United Kingdom. He was born in Sadulpur village, in the Churu district of Rajasthan, India. He is the CEO and founder of and has been the chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal since the merge. He also serves as a non-executive director of Goldman Sachs, EADS and ICICI Bank and is the chairman of the World Steel Association. The Financial Times named Lakshmi Mittal its 2006 Person of the Year. In May 2007, he was named one of the "100 Most Influential People" by Time magazine. As of 2009, Mittal is the 8th richest person in the world. He is also the richest person in the United Kingdom with personal wealth of US$19.3 billion or £10.8 billion in 2009.BiographyLakshmi Narayan Mittal also known as Lakshmi Niwas Mittal began his career working in the family’s steelmaking business in India, and has over 30 years of experience working in steel and related industries. Mittal founded the company Mittal Steel (formerly the LNM Group) in 1976 and has been responsible for the development of its businesses ever since. Mittal Steel is a global steel producer with operations in 14 countries. Mittal pioneered the development of integrated mini-mills and the use of Direct Reduced Iron or “DRI” as a scrap substitute for steelmaking and led the consolidation process of the global steel industry. Mittal Steel is the largest steelmaker in the world, with shipments of 42.1 million tons of steel and profits of over $22 billion in 2004. Mittal was awarded Fortune magazines “European Businessman of the Year 2004” and also “Steelmaker of the Year” in 1996 by New Steel, and the “Willy Korf Steel Vision Award” in 1998, for outstanding vision, entrepreneurship, leadership and success in global steel development from American Metal Market and PaineWeber’s World Steel Dynamics. In 2002 he was involved in a political scandal with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, when a donation he made to the Labour party led to Blair's intervention in a business deal favoring Mittal. It was announced later that he donated £2 million to the Labour Party. Mittal is an active philanthropist. Mittal is a member of the Foreign Investment Council in Kazakhstan, the International Investment Council in South Africa, the World Economic Forum’s International Business Council and the International Iron and Steel Institute’s Executive Committee. He is a member in the Advisory Board of the Kellogg School of Management (the business School of Northwestern University).
CareerMr. Mittal began his career working in the family's steelmaking business in India, and in 1976, when the family founded its own steel business; he set out to establish its international division, beginning with the buying of a run-down plant in Indonesia. Shortly afterwards he married Usha, the daughter of a well-to-do moneylender. In 1994, due to differences with his father, mother and brothers, he branched out on his own, taking over the international operations of the Mittal steel business (representing approximately 22- 23% of the whole group), which was already owned by the family. Mittal's family never spoke publicly about the reasons for the split. On November 6th, 2009 it was announced that the Mittal Family Trust agreed to purchase Germany’s insolvent fashion group, Escada, including Escada’s main business, brand rights, production facilities and distribution network. Megha Mittal, the 33 year old daughter-in-law of Lakshmi Mittal, was reported by journalists at Bloomberg News to be the main instigator of the deal. The purchase price was not disclosed.Personal WealthIn 2009, Forbes Magazine listed Mittal the world's 8th richest person with personal wealth of US$19.3 billion. In 2008, Mittal was reported to be the 4th wealthiest person in the world, and the wealthiest in Asia, by Forbes Magazine (up from 61st richest in 2004) up one place since a year before. The Mittal family owns a controlling majority stake in ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steel company.CharityAfter witnessing India win only one medal, bronze, in the 2000 Summer Olympics, and one medal, silver, at the 2004 Summer Olympics, Mittal decided to set up Mittal Champions Trust with US$9 million to support 10 Indian athletes with world-beating potential.[8].In 2008 Mittal awarded Abhinav Bindra with Rs. 1.5 Crore, for getting India its first individual Olympic gold medal in shooting. For Comic Relief 2007, he matched the money raised (~£1 million) on the celebrity special BBC programme, The Apprentice. ArcelorMittal also has a very active CSR program under which it sets out its path to produce Safe Sustainable Steel. The company also operates the ArcelorMittal Foundation, which provides support to many different community projects around the world in the countries where ArcelorMittal operates.
Queens Park RangersRecently, Mittal had emerged as a leading contender to buy and sell Barclays Premiership clubs Wigan and Everton. However on 20 December 2007 it was announced that the Mittal family had purchased a 20 per cent shareholding in Queens Park Rangers football club joining Flavio Briatore and Mittal's friend Bernie Ecclestone. As part of the investment Mittal's son-in-law, Amit Bhatia, took a place on the board of directors. The combined investment in the struggling club sparked suggestions that Mittal might be looking to join the growing ranks of wealthy individuals investing heavily in English football and emulating other similar benefactors such as Roman Abramovich.
Environmental damageLakshmi Mittal purchased the Irish Steel plant based in Cork from the Government for a nominal fee of £1. Three years later in 2001, it was closed, leaving 400 people redundant. Subsequent environmental issues at the site have been a cause for criticism. The Government tried to sue in the High Court to have him pay for the clean-up of Cork Harbour but failed. The clean up was expected to cost €70m.Personal lifeHe presently resides in Kensington, London. His residence at Kensington Palace Gardens was purchased from Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone in 2004 for £57 million (US$128 million), making it the world's most expensive house, at that date.Mittal's house in Kensington, London is decorated with marble taken from the same quarry that supplied the Taj Mahal. The extravagant show of wealth has been deemed the "Taj Mittal".It has 12 bedrooms, an indoor pool, Turkish baths and parking for 20 cars.Kensington Gardens, currently owned by financier Noam Gottesman. The Guardian newspaper reported that the purchase price would be £127 million, which would set a record for the most expensive house ever sold in Britain. The paper noted that the house on "Billionaire's Boulevard" was expected to be the home of Mittal's son.Wikinews has related news: Lakshmi Mittal tops Sunday Times Rich List
Awards2008: Padma Vibhushan2007: Bessemer Gold Medal2006: Person of the Year - Financial Times2004: European Businessman of the Year - Fortune magazine1998: Willy Korf Steel Vision Award - American Metal Market and PaineWeber’s World Steel Dynamics1996: Steelmaker of the Year - New Steel

Karsanbhai Patel

Achievement
Man behind the hugely successful brand, Nirma.
Karsanbhai Patel is the man behind the hugely successful brand, Nirma. His' is a legendary rags to riches journey during which he shattered established business theories and rewrote new ones.
Karsanbhai Patel has won many accolades on his way to success. The Federation of Association of Small Scale Industries of India, New Delhi, awarded him with the 'Udyog Ratna'. The Gujarat Chamber of Commerce felicitated him as an 'Outstanding Industrialist of the Eighties'. The Govt. of India twice appointed him Chairman of the Development Council for Oils, Soaps & Detergents.
Early Life
Karsanbhai Khodidas Patel (K.K. Patel) came from a humble farmer family from Mehsana, Gujarat. He worked as Lab Assistant in the Geology and Mining Department of the Government of Gujarat. In 1969, at the age of 25, Karsan Bhai Patel started a small-scale enterprise. He offered a quality detergent powder, using indigenous technology, at a third of the prevailing price, without compromising on the product. Karsanbhai named the detergent powder Nirma after daughter Nirupama.
After three years, Karsanbhai felt confident enough to quit his job.
Karsanbhai set up shop at small workshop in an Ahmedabad suburb. The Nirma brand quickly established itself in Gujarat and Maharashtra.

Profession life
In 1969, domestic detergent market was limited only to premium segment and was dominated by MNCs. Karsanbhai Patel started door-to-door selling of Nirma and priced it at Rs. 3 per kg. The next available cheapest brand in the market at that time was Rs.13 per kg. Nirma revolutionized the whole detergent powder segment and in a short span of time created an entirely new market segment in the domestic detergent sector market. It gave the bigger established brands a run for their money and soon occupied the top market share. To add to all this, Nirma was made of an innovative formulation, which global detergent giants were later on compelled to emulate, it was phosphate free and hence environment friendly, and the process of manufacturing was labour intensive, which offered large scale employment.

Karsanbhai notched up one success after another. After establishing its leadership in economy-priced detergents, Nirma foray into the premium brand segment, in cakes and detergents was equally successful. It built up a 30% market share in the premium detergent segment and achieved a greater than 20% share in the premium soaps market

Personal life
Karsanbhai have two sons and one daughter. Both sons and son-in-law are now at leading positions in the Nirma organization. Rakeshh K Patel (MBA) looks after procurement and logistics, Hiren K Patel, chemical engineer and MBA, heads marketing and finance, while Kalpesh Patel is in human resources and Healthcare Industry (Nirlife healthcare).

OM PRAKASH BHATT

CHAIRMAN OF SBI
DATE OF BIRTH 7th MARCH,1951
EDUCATION QUALIFICATION - MASTER OF ARTS(ENGLISH)
BEGINNING – Career started with SBI as probationary officer
Mr. O.P. Bhatt started his banking career as a Probationary Officer with State Bank of India in 1972. Mr. O.P. Bhatt has, during his long career of 36 years with SBI, held several important assignments in India and abroad including stints at the Bank’s London and Washington Offices. He was the Project Coordinator for the Bank’s computerization project from where he moved on to Regional Manager at Jaipur and then as Executive Secretary to the then Chairman of the SBI Group. After his return from Washington, Mr. Bhatt has held a number of critical assignments first as General Manager at Lucknow, later as Chief General Manager of the Bank’s North East Circle and then as Managing Director of State Bank of Travancore, a subsidiary of the State Bank of India.
As Chairman, Mr. Bhatt is not only the Chief Executive of India's largest
commercial bank, he is also the Head of the entire State Bank Group which consists of 8 domestic and 5 international banking subsidiaries, besides 10 nonbanking subsidiaries, and 2 Joint Ventures. Besides chairing these companies, Mr. Bhatt is also the Chairman of the Banking & Financial Institutions Committee of FICCI, Director on the board of several other companies like EXIM Bank and GIC and a member of the Boards of ICRIER, XLRI, IBPS, IDRBT, KVIC and National Co-operative Development Corporation. Mr. Bhatt took over the reigns of the State Bank of India at its most critical and challenging time. The process of liberalization and globalisation of the Indian economy had already begun, bringing with it both opportunities and threats. The private sector banks had begun to flourish in the Indian banking
industry, providing unprecedented competition to public sector banks like State Bank. Globalisation had also brought with it critical issues of risk management and capital adequacy. On the other hand, with the economy growing like never before, and with State Bank of India having the largest network of branches in the country and a strong IT platform already in place, Mr. Bhatt felt that the Bank was at the threshold of its "golden period". With his deep knowledge of the market, both domestic and international, his close grasp of IT related issues, his hands-on approach to execution, and his proven ability to plan and strategise, Mr. Bhatt began at SBI, a process of consolidating the Bank's strengths, innovating new products to suit today's market, and taking effective
steps to ensure that technology, human resources and business processes are harnessed towards expansion and deeper penetration of the market, both domestic and foreign.

Mr. Bhatt has ushered in a Transformation Exercise at SBI which began
with the Top Management and has been taken right down to the grass root level. ‘Parivartan’ – a change management capsule programme, which was the brainchild of Mr. Bhatt and is hailed by the industry, as the largest ever programme of its kind, covered 1,30,000 employees of SBI in 100 days.


The Bank, under Mr. Bhatt, has made rapid strides during the past two years – arresting falling market share, rapid branch expansion – the Bank opened its 10,000th branch this year – the first Indian bank and only the second in the world to do so, and entering a number of new businesses. A testimony to this is the number of awards conferred on the Bank and on Mr. Bhatt including the “Banker of the Year” by Business Standard and CNN-IBN Indian of the Year for Business, both in 2007. The Bank has, under the aegis of Mr. Bhatt, steadily improved its Global ranking from 107 in 2006 to 70 in 2007 and 57 in 2008. The Bank’s ranking in the list of Fortune 500 companies has similarly moved up from 495 in 2006 to 380 in July 2008, and is, incidentally, the only
Indian bank in this list.

Kumar Mangalam

Chairman of the Aditya Birla Group; Vhosen as Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year - India in 2005

Kumar Mangalam Birla is the Chairman of the Aditya Birla Group. The group is India's third largest business house. Major companies of Aditya Birla Group in India are Grasim, Hindalco, UltraTech Cement, Aditya Birla Nuvo and Idea Cellular. Aditya Birla Group's joint ventures include Birla Sun Life (Financial Services) and Birla NGK (Insulators). The group also has its presence in various countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Egypt, Canada, China and Australia.

Early life

Born on June 14, 1967, Kumar Mangalam Birla spent the early of his life in Calcutta and Mumbai. He is a Chartered Accountant and did his MBA (Masters in Business Administration) from the London Business School, London. Kumar Mangalam Birla took over as Chairman in 1995, at the age of 28, after sudden demise of his father, noted industrialist Aditya Birla, after whom the group is named.




Career
When Kumar Mangalam Birla assumed the mantle at the Aditya Birla Group, Doubts were raised about his ability to handle a giant business house with interests spanning viscose, textiles and garments on the one hand and cement, aluminium and fertilizers on the other. But Kumar Mangalam proved his skeptics wrong. He brought in radical changes, changed business strategies, professionalized the entire group and replaced internal systems. Kumar Mangalam reduced his group's dependence on the cyclic commodities sectors by entering consumer products.


Kumar Mangalam Birla also holds several key positions on various regulatory and professional boards, including chairmanship of the advisory committee constituted by the ministry of company affairs for 2006 and 2007, membership of the prime minister of India's advisory council on trade and industry, chairmanship of the board of trade reconstituted by the union minister of commerce and industry, and membership of the Central Board of Directors of the Reserve Bank of India.

Kumar Mangalam Birla honors
Kumar Mangalam Birla has won several honors. Major among them include The Business Leader of the Year (2003) by The Economic Times, Business Man of the Year - 2003 by Business India, and The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year - India in 2005.