Kumar Birla is ET biz leader of the year

MUMBAI: Perseverance, true grit, and financial savvy were amply rewarded as , the world''s second-largest business daily, chose its awards for corporate excellence, the Oscars of Corporate India.
The winners range from Kumar Mangalam Birla, Business Leader of the Year and the country''s youngest billionaire, and Deepak Parekh, the doyen of the Indian financial services industry, who was honoured for Lifetime Achievement, to Ela Bhatt, the famous social activist and founder of SEWA, who was named Businesswoman of the Year.
The awards were for nine different categories and for the first time included a category called ''Global Indian'' for promoting and raising the profile of India Inc.abroad.
Amar Bose, the son of a freedom fighter from Kolkata, who made Bose Speakers a household name in the US, got the award.
I-flex, a rising star in information technology was named Emerging Company of the Year while the country''s global pharma major, Ranbaxy, was the Company of the Year. V G Siddhartha, the founder of Amalgamated Coffee Bean Trading (Cafe Coffee Day) was the Entrepreneur of the Year for creating a strong brand in a market that has little brand loyalty. The Godrej group was chosen as Corporate Citizen of the Year.
An 11-member jury comprising, among others, N R Narayana Murthy, chairman and Chief Mentor of Infosys Technologies, Rahul Bajaj, chairman Bajaj Auto, and M V Subbiah, chairman of the Murugappa group, chose the winners after a marathon three-hour debate.