| The glittering gala function that lasted for about five hours culminated in the award announcement Oscar style, where the final winner's name was kept a closely guarded secret till the last moment. |
| The tempo kept building up as the buzz spread that India's Kumar Mangalam Birla and a few others were hot favourites. |
| Ultimately, what tilted the odds in Lynch's favour seems to have been his classic rags-to-riches entrepreneurial story. |
| With only a village school education and a love for business from the day he began work in a garage in rural Ireland, he painstakingly built South Africa's largest transport and mobility group, Imperial Holdings. |
| Today, he is chief executive of a business with a market capitalisation of about ¤4 billion. |
| In 1971 Lynch came to South Africa as a 27-year-old with £2,000, no job and few prospects during a worsening recession. He joined Imperial Motors, a car dealership that was losing money at that point of time. He led its turnaround, applying disciplines that were second nature to a manager raised in poverty. In 1973 he acquired 10 per cent of Imperial. |
| He led a growth strategy diversifying into truck hire, logistics, car rental and leasing. Today, Imperial employs 36, 000 people in three continents. |
| In the past, while India's NR Narayana Murthy won the award a few years ago, others like Sunil Mittal and BM Munjal of the Hero group have been close contenders. |
| For 38-year old Birla, who celebrates his birthday later this week, a win would have been a good birthday present but unfortunately it passed him by. |
| The writer's trip was sponsored by Ernst & Young, India |
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