Forbes INDIA Leadership Awards 2020-21

In a year when business leaders were forced to overhaul their strategies from growth to survival mode, the Forbes India Leadership Awards honour those who successfully navigated the pandemic by innovating and leading from the front

- SALIL PANCHAL

Building Corporate Immunity

The Forbes India Leadership Awards (FILA), now in the 10th year, are an acknowledgement of corporate excellence, visionary leadership and innovation. The Covid-19 pandemic hurt the world possibly like never before: A massive loss of human life, lockdown in industrial activity, huge government debts for most countries and a range of bankruptcies and subsequent job losses—in the retail, telecom, aviation and hospitality space.

The pressure to stay afloat became more acute for Indian companies, particularly as they were in the midst of a slowdown pre-pandemic. India’s pace of growth is likely to contract by 7.5 to 8 percent for the full fiscal.

Business leaders were forced to rethink and overhaul their strategies from growth to survival mode. It thus meant deploying finance, technology and human resources most effectively.

Our distinguished jury used these themes to identify companies and business leaders worthy of corporate honors. We introduced three new awards this year: Covid-19 innovators and two philanthropy awards—a reflection of the need to recognise those supporting social causes.

Achieving corporate excellence, turning around business fortunes or scaling up startups was rare. Besides the quantitative data, which includes operating performance and efficiency measures, we looked at leadership skills and the quality of corporate governance to determine candidates.