Our Great Captains
Now, that we at Outlook have done the list of 50 all-time greats, we want to make it an annual feature to list out the 50 most important contemporary CEOs.
Dr Parvinder Singh (1943-1999) Ranbaxy
Parvinder didn’t induct his sons to the company’s board, instead named senior executive D.S. Brar as Ranbaxy’s CEO.
Y.K. Hamied, Cipla
Hamied played a key role in forming the Indian Drug Manufacturers Association and successfully lobbied for patent law changes in the country.
Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Naukri.com
Quitting a corporate job, Bikhchandani started Info Edge and Indmark, working out of a servant’s quarter for which he paid his dad Rs 800.
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Biocon
Mazumdar Shaw struggled to raise capital not just because she was a woman, but because of her ambitions in a globally competitive and advanced field.
Ramesh Chauhan, Parle Group
Chauhan believes that executing a project is more than just getting the job done.... He has a way of making brands a part of consumers’ lives.
Romesh Sobti, Indusind Bank
Sobti’s success is due to clear strategy and innovative execution. He has also used technology to create various banking products.
Kishore Biyani, Future Group
It was the booming middle class that helped Biyani’s growth from Pantaloon
Shiv Nadar, HCL
Eight young men quit DCM in 1976 to create HCL in a Delhi barsati, “akin to a garage startup”.... It went on to revolutionise Indian technology.
R.C. Bhargava, Maruti Suzuki
Under Bhargava, Maruti became India’s No. 1 automobile firm and a precious profit-making engine for its parent Suzuki.
A.M. Naik, Larsen & Toubro Ltd
Naik’s plucky support for indigenisation helped L&T become a major supplier of missiles and weapon systems.
Prathap Reddy, Apollo Hospitals
The idea to set up a hospital chain simmered within Dr Reddy on returning to India after a successful career in the US. He sensed the potential of good private healthcare.
Yogesh Chander Deveshwar, ITC
To Y.C. Deveshwar can go the credit of pulling ITC out of its status as a pure cigarette major and diversifying it.
Rahul Bhatia, Indigo
Bhatia’s low-cost airline is now the biggest in India. The flights are 15% more fuel-efficient, ply in routes that burn less fuel. Even the speed is moderated.
Rahul Bajaj, Bajaj Group
The group ranks among India’s top ten, with footmarks beyond auto: home appliances, travel, insurance, financial services and iron and steel.
Onkar Singh Kanwar, Apollo Tyres
Onkar built on his father’s beginnings and established himself as a global tyre tycoon.
Anand Mahindra, Mahindra Group
Under Anand Mahindra, the group grew inorganically through acquisitions like Reva Electric Car, Satyam Computer Services and Peugeot motorcycles.
Xerxes Desai (1937-2016) Titan
Desai gave India its first quartz watches, a respite from watches that had to be set up and wound every day. J.R.D. Tata instantly liked the idea of launching a watch brand.
Brijmohan Lall Munjal (1923-2015) & Pawan Kant Munjal Hero Group
The joint venture with Honda overtook Bajaj Auto to become India’s biggest two-wheeler manufacturer.
Subhash Chandra, Zee Network
In <em>The Z Factor</em>, his autobiography, Chandra barely couches his belief that business isn’t a straight path and requires one to do all it takes.
R.H. Patil (1937-2012) NSE
A firm believer in automation and paperless trading, Patil linked trading terminals across India using V-SAT technology.
Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Tata Consultancy Services
TCS’s growth points to Chandra’s pace and focus on agility. His management style, he said once, is a fusion of a ‘high and soft’ touches.
Nandan Nilekani, UIDAI
Nilekani executed the Aadhaar project, an attempt to create a biometric database of the entire population of India. It was hailed as the biggest social project on the planet.
Azim H. Premji, Wipro
In 2010 and 2013, the Wipro chairman donated a total of more than Rs 28,000 crore to Azim Premji Foundation—one of the highest philanthropic contributions ever by an Indian.
J.R.D. Tata (1904-1993) Tata Group
JRD started with 14 firms in the Tata Group. When he left in 1988, it had 95, many of which he founded. He was also the progenitor of commercial flights in India.
Sunil Bharti Mittal, Bharti Enterprises
“He had a vision and coming from a political family, he also has insight into how policy making works,” says telecom expert Mahesh Uppal.
Subramaniam Ramadorai, TCS
The scale at which Tata Consultancy Service’s strategy and business model grew under Ramadorai as the CEO since 1996 was unimaginable.
N.R. Narayana Murthy, Infosys
“He had this dream of building the best company in the world so everything he did had to be top class,” says former colleague T.V. Mohandas Pai.
V. Krishnamurthy, SAIL, BHEL, Maruti
“He was the high priest of public sector management. He’d turn companies around,” says biz historian Raman Mahadevan.
Dhirubhai Ambani (1932-2002) Reliance
“The whole DNA of his business was not only to innovate for survival but also to innovate to change the rules of the business game,” says Pritam Singh, former director, IIM Lucknow.
K.V. Kamath, ICICI
Banking wasn’t his first choice in profession. Kamath had studied to be an engineer to join his family business of tile manufacturing.
Deepak Parekh, HDFC
“Parekh made us believe that even a single product company can be phenomenally successful,” says biz-analyst Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Ratan Naval Tata, Tata sons
A bachelor known for his low-profile lifestyle, Ratan Tata’s coup against his successor last year showed he’s still the boss.
Dr K. Kasturirangan, ISRO
“He had the wisdom and managerial skills to convince the government to invest in rockets,” says K. Raghavan, chief architect of satellite systems.
Samir Jain, The Times Group
In the 1990s, Samir Jain brought in his corporatised approach with an unabashedly growth and profit orientation, defining media as a consumer product.
E. Sreedharan, Delhi Metro
“Whenever there’s a problem, he focuses on the target—‘like Arjuna’. It doesn’t matter who he has to crush on the way, even politicians,” says his biographer Rajendra B. Aklekar.