Ninth Ernst & Young Awards today

The ninth Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards will be announced and the winners felicitated at a function in the capital on Tuesday. Over 400 leading businessmen, corporate personalities and professionals will attend the programme.

The winners, who will be selected from among 20 finalists, will represent India at the Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards in Monte Carlo, Monaco, in May 2008.

Among the finalists are Keshub Mahindra of Mahindra Group, Atul Punj of, Punj Lloyd, Shiv Nadar, HCL, Sajjan Jindal, JSW Steel, Shikha Sharma, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance and R Ramalinga Raju, Satyam Computer Services.

A six-member jury chaired by K V Kamath, managing director and CEO, ICICI Bank, selected the finalists from over 170 nominations, the biggest number since the awards were launched in 1999.

The other jury members were Ashish Dhawan, senior managing director, Chryscapital, Keki Dadiseth, managing director, Omnicom, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairman Biocon, Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman. Aditya Birla Group and S Ramadorai, CEO of TCS.

Rajiv Memani, country managing parnter, Ernst & Young India, said, "We are in the ninth year of the Entrepreneur of the Year programme and it is indeed an honour to come across such a vast pool of entrepreneurial talent which our country produces, year on year. To have come this far, handpicked by the stellar jury, is no small feat."

Past recipients of the EOY awards are Tulsi Tanti (Suzlon), Kumar Mangalam Birla (Aditya Birla Group), Sunil Bharti Mittal (Bharti Enterprises), Ratan Tata (Tata Group), N R Narayana Murthy (Infosys), Brijmohan Lall Munjal (Hero Group) and Mukesh D Ambani (Reliance).

An Entrepreneur's Roundtable will precede the awards ceremony. Jury members, EOY finalists and corporate leaders will attend the session which will discuss the subject of "Sustaining Business Performance" and providing leadership for growth.

The discussion will take up such aspects as identifying and influencing market changes, allocation of resources for future growth versus investments in existing successful businesses, building people and systems and risks the Indian companies should consider while going global.