With The World Order upended by the Coronavirus pandemic this year, a lot of the discussion has come to be centred around leadership and how leaders across the spectrum have navigated the debilitating impact of the event. A study published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research and the World Economic Forum found that countries with women leaders acted quickly and decisively in the face of potential fatalities in the initial months of the pandemic, and fared better than many which had male leaders.

In this issue of Fortune India,  meet  India’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business who with their sharp acumen have built companies, struck massive corporate deals, or developed brands as they took their firms to the top.

Our special package this month is Fortune India’s iconic annual listing ‘40 under 40’—India Inc.’s young business leaders who made a mark on the economic landscape with their conviction to pursue their vision, fearless risk-taking capacity and the ability to make a difference in their industries.

The Special Issue this month is Fortune India’s unique and exclusive annual HR package on Employers Of The Future. Curated with our partners Work Universe, the package carefully crafts the cutting edge human resources practices at some of India’s most future-oriented organisations.

Our Special Package this issue is the ninth edition of The Next 500: India’s Largest Emerging Companies. These are companies smaller than those that figure in the Fortune 500 India list but are by no means short on grit, determination and ambition. Ever since the list began in 2015, a record 120 companies have scaled the `2,000 crore summit on total income. Of these, 31 have, for the first-time ever, surged past the `2,500 crore threshold. Read the Next 500 success stories in the package.

Budget Special:

Meanwhile in finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s fifth Budget, India’s vastly successful formula since the Covid-hit year 2020 to keep the nation’s economic engine firing through loads of capital expenditure on infrastructure remains at the heart of Union Budget 2023 as well. This time Centre’s capital expenditure sees an astounding 33% hike to `10 lakh crore This Budget will be remembered for its ‘Long Vision’, for the tenacity to resist the temptation to be populist in the last full Budget before General Elections in April next year. It will be remembered for responsible fiscal management and for sticking to what will work to India’s advantage in the long run rather than myopic, bank-busting moves that had become the norm for governments serving the last year of their term. Fortune India explain why the big moves in the Budget prove that long-term vision outwitted short-term populism to put India on a path of growth and prosperity in a sea of global economic slowdown.

            Other than Budget, there are other interesting reads too. One such is, the first inside account of the remarkable changes that are transforming the Tata Group to be future-ready. N. Chandrasekaran, chairman of group holding company Tata Sons, sat down with Fortune India at group headquarters Bombay House over cups of Starbucks coffee to explain how he is pivoting the 154 year old group. Such, that it will sport a renewed look a few years hence.

Cover package of this issue is on where to invest in the New Year. Investments that will deliver in 2023. Seen through the eyes of the Best Equity Fund Managers; Best Debt Fund Managers, Best Insurers and the Best NPS Funds. A special piece even brings you where leading fund managers invest their own money. Answers to the evergreen question: Should you invest in property in 2023? Are gold and crypto good investments? And when buying luxury, what may be the better investment avenues. Not to miss the power-packed Private Wealth Roundtable,
where the country’s top fund managers debate on managing wealth
Team Fortune India wishes you, dear readers, a Happy, Prosperous and Peaceful New Year with the promise that our insightful coverage of economy and business will continue unabated in 2023.

Fortune 500 India: The iconic Fortune 500 India listing of the country’s biggest companies — now in its 13th edition — is always a barometer of scale. Of size that never fails to amaze. The top 500 club in 2022 is now worth $1.57 trillion in annual revenue, almost as big as the economies of Canada, Mexico and Spain. 
Despite the Sensex rollercoaster in the fiscal, the combined market cap of 449 listed companies in 2022 stood at a record `239 lakh crore as of November 11. That’s a healthy valuation of 101% of India’s nominal GDP, indicating the stock market performance is not out of place despite a healthy run. Another milestone of scale is the number of billion dollar companies —233 this year comprising almost half of the cohort — at a time when rupee-dollar was nearly 76 in March. That’s a jump from a decade ago, despite gradual rupee depreciation.
The special Fortune 500 India package in the pages to follow also features standout performers of the fiscal: How constant evolution at Reliance Industries has kept it at the top of this year’s listing as well, despite all-round challenges; Adani Wilmar’s businesses of scale; LIC’s stunning debut at No.2; and among others, how the all-digital play at Info Edge paid off.

The Special Package this issue is Fortune India’s newest addition — ‘India’s Best B-Schools’ with the most modern survey of the country’s business schools and a unique methodology introducing the concept of ‘Distance To Frontier’ for the first time in the country. Among other stories in the package read:
How consultancy is emerging as a significant revenue stream for top B-Schools as both public and private sector as well as the government rely on their unique capability of ear-to-the-ground research; how prominent B-Schools are spreading their wings to cater to rising demand with new campuses and new courses; what does global accreditation mean for domestic schools; and why entrepreneurship has taken a backseat among B-School grads, at least in 2022.



India’s Best CEOs:
The Special Issue this month identifies India’s Best CEOs for 2022. When the going gets tough, it’s the tough that get going. The Fortune India-EY study of the best performers in India Inc. is a three-month long extensive exercise that pores over the financial performance data — revenue, profits, share price performance and return on capital employed — of their companies over a three-year period to identify the top three performers in four size categories, 12 sectors and among PSUs. The findings are then presented before an eminent jury that decided India’s Best CEOs for 2022.

India’s Richest- Maiden Rich List by Fortune India-Water field Advisors
Who are the richest in India and what are they valued at? Fortune India and Waterfield Advisors come together to bring out the list of India’s richest. A look at India’s growing wealth factory; dollar billionaires, rich professionals; rise of small town billionaires; and emergence of new asset classes.
The coveted club of dollar billionaires based in India is collectively worth $832 billion (`66.36 lakh crore), Fortune India-Waterfield Advisors’ first ranking of India’s billionaires brings you the most definitive list of the country’s wealthiest billionaires.


Our special package this issue is Fortune India’s iconic ‘Most Powerful Women in Business 2022’. Gender parity in workforce has been a stated goal for India Inc. Yet, the reality is that women’s participation in Indian workforce dipped over 30% in 2021. In the lead story, Ajita Shashidhar writes on corporate India’s serious push to take the diversity agenda beyond their own workplace into the larger ecosystem of vendors, suppliers and distributors.

Our Special Package this issue is on India’s $7 billion Luxury Industry where sustainable luxury gets a whole new meaning. Luxury buyers contribute to sustainability by preventing greater use of materials with pre-owned luxury or ‘pre-loved’ products.
Cover story of this issue captures this vast complexity of India’s fast-track chemical industry that has come into its own with some bold calls and remark-able innovations.


Our special issue this month is ‘Employers Of The Future’ — a unique study conducted with our partners Work Universe to identify some of the best practices among organisations who are on a mission to ready themselves for the future needs of their employees.
Our cover story this issue is a peek into the mind of the one man whose ambition keeps growing bigger with each new milestone. Whom the whole corporate world is trying to decipher. Importantly, the big challenges before the first-generation group, including the ballooning debt, assimilation of massive acquisitions, entry into new businesses and transitioning of old businesses — all happening at the same time. Gautam Adani patiently explains the group’s rapidfire entry into the nearly two dozen businesses that appear totally unrelated to the outside world. From ports to air-ports; thermal, solar and wind power to cement; and edible oils and FMCG to city gas distribution.  


The Special Issue this month is our brand new introduction: India’s Best Financiers —a Fortune India-Grant Thornton Bharat study of India’s best banks. A unique study that stands out for not just capturing the past fiscal performance of banks but also the first nine months of the most recent fiscal.                       V. Keshavdev examines how the most successful of India’s best banks steered through the past two years with foresight and patience. The Special package is also studded with stories that bring alive what’s going on in India’s banking sector. In ‘Learning to live with fintech’, the early animosity between incumbent banks and newbies fintechs seems to be a thing of the past. The two are now collaborating to help the former slash operational costs. 
Another feature to watch out for this month is Ajita Shashidhar and Asmita Dey-authored cover story on how India’s Metaverse Economy is being created, byte by byte. And the enormous challenges along the way. 


Fortune India’s 40 Under 40 issue is an annual feature where we identify 40 most promising young Entrepreneurs & Corporate honchos under the age of 40, in India across all disciplines.  This edition of the annual study packs in young achievers from industries as diverse as satellite manufacturing to sustainable hospi-tality; smart tech healthcare to data science and edtech to swappable batteries. Savour the dive into the minds of 40 of India’s best and brightest.

FORTUNE INDIA- THE NEXT 500 
At the core of a nation’s economic strength are its small and emerging companies. For de-cades, Europe’s strongest economy Germany has shown to the world how healthy small and medium enterprises can be powerhouses of economic well-being. It’s been idolised not just in Europe, but also in India and across the globe. 
Over years, India’s own emerging companies landscape has gained from strength to strength. Now, lower corporate tax rate and the performance linked incentive schemes have brought a whole new vibrancy into this eco-system.  In this Special Issue, Fortune India’s Next 500 companies have got back into the black after struggling with profitability for three successive years.
Our cover story this issue though is on global PE giant Blackstone’s adventures in India’s real estate and PE markets.

Decoding Budget Fineprint:
Fortune India speaks to some of India’s top economists, industrialists, bankers and CEOs to decipher Budget 2022. Economists now reluctantly acknowledge the sanity India’s supply-side stimulus brings to the government’s finances via controlled deficit. Especially, vis-a-vis the balance sheet busting sops in the West. Read our Budget Special package on page 54.

India’s SuperApp Gold Rush:
The cover story this issue, though, is the quest to win the next frontier in India’s booming digital economy — the SuperApp. Clouded in secrecy, some of India’s biggest conglomerates, e-tailers, banks and aggregators are vying for a projected $800 billion market over the next 7-8 years. Reliance Industries, Tata group, Adani, SBI, Paytm, ITC, Amazon, Flipkart, Kotak Bank are all in the race to create that all-inclusive consumer experience in a single App. Read Team Fortune India’s account of the Super-App gold rush on page 20.

Best Investments 2022:
This issue of Fortune India is designed to help you with any or all of your decisions— how to invest, where to invest and when to invest. Conceptualised at that classic intersection of economy and markets, it will help you navigate through the macro-economic environment in 2022, setting the tone for vital investment decisions on the personal front. 
Happy investing in 2022!


There’s change in the weather, and there’s change in the air! The panic of 2020 has given way to quiet confidence that businesses can be man-aged — despite Covid. Fear is receding, making way for exuberance. And India Inc. is perceptibly more assured in its outlook towards growth, expansion, hiring and capex. All of that reflects in corporate balance sheets captured so dramatically by Fortune India 500- Fortune India's marquee annual listing of 500 largest firms in the country.

INDIA’S MOST POWERFUL WOMEN IN BUSINESS 2021:
When life gifts you roses, the world judges you by how you bear with thorns. Having gone through her own trials by fire, each one of India’s most illustrious women leaders from the world of business and economy makes the cut for Fortune India’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business. How power is deployed acquired a whole new dimension in 2020-21 — a year like no other.
In the following pages read the fascinating exploits of India’s Top 50 superwomen.

How I Built My Unicorn
Shock & Awe Entrepreneurs In 2021 so far, of the world’s 329 new unicorns, 27 are from India. At Fortune India, we dived deep into the minds of the founders of these 27 most-valued unicorns. Whether it’s Byju’s, Ola, OYO or the previous-generation firms such as Flipkart, each story captures the unicorn’s journey from the idea to early struggle and hitting upon the monetisation model; the biggest challenges, the make or break moments; not to forget the tech, HR, finance and sales & marketing challenges — and the lessons learnt. All from the horse’s mouth — the founders themselves.
Savour your special Collector’s Issue for years to come.

This special issue of Fortune India is conceptualised to capture distinct nuances of India’s luxury market. The breadth of coverage includes new strides in luxury art, reigniting of interest in luxury villas and homes, watches, cars, travel, liquor…just to name a few. There’s a lot, lot more in the pages to follow. Enjoy this finely curated issue.

Regulator RBI’s governance circular has private banks and their CEOs in a spin. The RBI believes boards and its committees get over-awed by long-standing CEOs. They stop asking tough questions from the CEO. Hence, their tenure must be limited. Importantly, as long as they are CEOs, their powers must have oversight of independent committees. CEOs see in this a great conspiracy to undermine their authority. But they are in a losing battle. In a fight with the boss, there can only be one winner—the boss. But this tussle comes at an inopportune moment. Bank CEOs are on tenterhooks over RBI’s governance code at a time when banks are hit by worsening asset quality due to the pandemic. By 2023, almost all long-term private bank chiefs will be forced to bid adieu. Lack of visibility over tenures has caused embarrassment to incumbents and boards even as big institutional investors seek clarity on succession plans. Our cover story this issue takes you inside this silent battle—and its implications.
 Our special issue package this month focusses on sustainability, an area that is pregnant with excitement after India’s two richest men Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani have announced massive multi-billion dollar investments in green projects.


Fortune India’s Top 100 Wealth Creators list is focussed on consistency as the key metric while picking the real stars of the bourses.
On the one hand, there were companies and businesses that were severely impacted by the lockdown and the rising number of infections. On the other, there has been a consistent rise in the bench-mark stock market indices as share prices head north despite the pandemic. India saw a massive $37.6 billion of foreign portfolio inflows in FY21, higher than the cumulative inflows of the past six years, while domestic institutional investors saw outflows of $18.4 billion after five years of inflows. With vacci-nations gathering pace and the second wave receding, the upward trend continues. Fortune India’s issue on India’s Top 100 Wealth Creators comes against this back-drop. However, to identify the true generators of investor wealth, we didn’t go by the simple definition of market capitalization gains over a period. We focussed on consistency as the key metric while picking the real stars of the bourses. The line-up of names is self-explanatory. There is Syngene International, the contract research company majority owned by Biocon, which is now aiming to become a global science company in its own right. Among other names on the list are seafood major Avanti Feeds, quite a favourite of investors; tech company Sonata Software; Honeywell Automation, which is banking on more manufacturing companies adopting Industry 4.0; and tried and tested healthcare major Apollo Hospitals Enterprise. All these companies rewarded shareholders over time, but also remained focussed on the bottom line and have grown their businesses significantly. These, we believe, are true wealth creators, and we hope you will enjoy reading how they did it



Fortune India’s 40 Under 40 is list of young achievers in the world of business. These are some of India’s brightest minds who have, by the sheer power of their ideas and innovative thinking, set up or run busi-nesses that are at the forefront of the new India story which is taking shape. These young minds are restless and keen to make positive change, fearless enough to take risks, and have the perseverance to stay the course and see their ideas to fruition. 

As India battles the second, deadly, wave of the Coronavirus which has caused havoc across the country and stretched its healthcare system to the limit, companies in the sector have come to the fore, literally as lifesavers, working tirelessly to ensure the attack of the virus is countered with every measure at their disposal. Fighting this battle to save lives are several Family-Owned Businesses across the health-care industry. If the Reddys of Apollo Hospitals are ensuring patients get care in their facilities, vaccine makers like the Poonawallas of Serum Institute of India (SII) and the Ellas of Bharat Biotech are at the forefront as India rolls out its liberalised vaccination policy from May 1. Equally important are companies like diagnostics chain Metropolis Healthcare and the Godrej Group, which is supporting the vaccination effort with its smart refrigeration systems. There are more examples: Cadila, Cipla, Dr. Reddy’s, Wockhardt… the list is long.
  In our cover story this month, we take a close look at how Bharat Biotech, run by Krishna Ella and his wife Suchitra, developed its home-grown vaccine Covaxin—jointly with the Indian Council of Medical Research—in double quick time and, despite challenges, managed to fight shoulder to shoulder with SII in aiming to inoculate India’s massive population.


Meanwhile, it’s been over a year since the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic. In this issue, we take stock of how the world has changed since then, and how some sectors have rolled out new ways to adapt to the new normal. Whether it is the healthcare sector, hotels, or real estate, nothing will ever be the same again. There are, of course, several leader-ship lessons which the pandemic has taught us, and companies big and small are taking those on board as they navigate the chang-ing world. But even amidst the severe challenges the pandemic has posed, there is enough entre-preneurial energy to be celebrated. As many as 11 startups turned unicorns during the past months, demonstrating that investors will always continue to seek out interesting ventures and ideas. The spirit of enterprise will continue to win, no matter what.

The Midsize Marvels
The Fortune India Next 500 list for the year 2021 is the ranking of the country’s
top midsize firms. This year, the list has 140 new entrants. This year’s Next 500 list has some very interesting names, a few of which we have  covered in detail in the pages that follow.  Elsewhere in this issue, we bring you a fascinating conversation with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla where he talks about develop-ing the Covid-19 vaccine, drug prices, and his “next impossible task”. There’s also the much-awaited Fortune list of The World’s Most Admired Companies, where Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Walt Disney, and Star-bucks occupy the top 5 slots among the 50 All-Stars who won votes from both within their industries and outside.

Netflix has spawned an entertainment revolution globally. And now it views India as a key market. In this issue we chart Netflix’s India strategy. When we spoke to Hastings for this month’s cover story, he said that the one big lesson he learnt after having to sell his first company was “the danger of over optimising for efficiency with rules and processes”. It is this flexibility which is essentially the Netflix Way, a management philosophy which has seen a DVD mail-order service morph into one of the biggest global brands with its streaming service which changed the way the world consumes entertainment.
Moving away from Netflix, the past month has seen frenetic activity on two fronts—the roll-out of the much-awaited Covid-19 vaccines in India, and the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States. Both developments have major ramifications for the Indian economy, and this issue examines them in detail. Our special package on- DOING BUSINESS WITH BIDEN discusses in detail how India has much to gain if U.S. President Joe Biden focusses more on expanding bilateral free trade and investment, rather than go ahead with his tax proposals. 
In this issue we also have a special Fortune India Exchange booklet on HEROES OF CORPORATE INDIA.

Happy 2021! May the new year bring you good health and prosperity.
2020 was a transformative year, with Covid-19 altering the corporate landscape like never before. The past year has been one of unprecedented disruption, where the Corona-virus pandemic caused havoc across the world, causing even the mightiest economies to shud-der and look for ways to get back on their feet. India, of course, was no exception. But even in a chaotic year like 2020, there was enough corporate activity for us to debate on, before we finally picked not just one, but a few, moves of the year to showcase in this issue
THE JANUARY ISSUE of Fortune India is about the Move of the Year—a corporate or policy development in the year gone by which has the potential to be a game changer and impact companies or the business environment.

If one wants to take a health check on corporate India, and hence get a glimpse of how the broader economy is looking, there are few better places to do that than the Fortune India 500 (FI500) listing of India’s largest corporations. Over the years, this list has demonstrated the ups and downs of India Inc, the challenges faced by companies in the wake of policy changes, and the way forward for the economy. 
The 2020 Fortune India 500 list of India’s largest companies, which we bring you in this edition is drawn from  FY20 numbers, does not tell us the story of how the Coronavirus pandemic impacted businesses But even without the pandemic there are enough pain points, evidence that FY20 was hardly a happy year for Corporate India.  The total profit of the 2020 Fortune India 500 companies declined nearly 22% from the year-ago period to around `3.6 lakh crore. The impact of Covid-19 will be evident in next year’s listing. There are 38 companies which reported a revenue of more than `50,000 crore each; these accounted for almost 60% of the total revenue of this year’s list
In the VUCA world, even the largest companies will need to be nimble and adapt to sudden changes. The good news, as some of the stories in the following pages will tell you, is that many companies have already recognised this new reality, and are in the process of reorienting their business models. The world has changed forever.

May 2023

April 2023

March 2023

February 2023

January 2023

December 2022

November 2022

October 2022

September 2022

August 2022

July 2022

June 2022

May 2022

April 2022

March 2022

February 2022

Fortune is one of the most respected business magazines in the world. It is known for its unrivaled access to world’s most influential leaders and decision-makers. In a world of business long on information and short on time, Fortune stands out with trusted insight, deep reporting and provocative story telling. Few publications cover the world of business with as much depth, breadth, wisdom, and panache. That’s why Fortune is recognized as ‘the best magazine in the world that just happens to be about business’.

Fortune 500 is perhaps the best-known brand in business journalism and the ultimate hallmark of corporate success.

Launched in India in October 2010,  Fortune India retains the spirit of the global brand with respect to thought leadership and practice from across the world every month while adding an Indian dimension.

It is the only truly global business magazine dedicated to the global success of Indian business leaders, offering actionable insights to propel their businesses. Since Oct 2010, we have changed the way business magazines deliver content.

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Fortune India - November 2020

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