Tuesday 9 August 2016

ET Young Leaders 2016: India Inc gets a peek at 50 shades of leadership


MUMBAI: Fifty men and women have forced their way through 32,000 aspirants, three levels of rigorous testing and in-depth interviews by a panel of 11 topnotch chief executive officers to make it to the prestigious ET Young Leaders 2016 list. ET Young Leaders is the largest and most competitive such talent-spotting exercise in India Inc. Only one out of 640 applicants made it to the final list. "This is the future of India," said
Kalpana Morparia, CEO India, JPMorgan, referring to the ET Young Leaders. "The calibre of youth we have is superior than our generation; what we need to do is harness their potential," she added. Women accounted for 40 per cent of the aspirants in the final list.

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Even though women accounted for only about 20 per cent of the total applicant base, they forced their way to greater representation as the candidates went through the online testing phase.

Their share grew to 33 per cent of the 100 shortlisted candidates who went face-to-face with CEOs.

Twenty-six per cent of the final list was from the banking and financial services space; 16 per cent and 10 per cent came from ecommerce and IT companies, respectively. Besides individual applicants, about 225 were nominated by their employers.

A panel of 11 CEOs - Kalpana Morparia of JPMorgan India, Shikha Sharma of Axis Bank, Vijay Shekhar Sharma of Paytm, Harsh Mariwala of Marico, Noshir Kaka of McKinsey India, Pramit Jhaveri of Citi India, Rajan Anandan of Google, Sanjiv Mehta of Hindustan Unilever, Vineet Nayar of Sampark Foundation, Roopa Kudva of Omidyar Network and Pranay Chulet of Quikr - interviewed 100 young leaders who made it through all the tests, before picking the final 50.

"What struck me was the sense of purpose," said Sanjiv Mehta, CEO, Hindustan Unilever. Noshir Kaka came away impressed by the resilience of the Young Leaders.

Know all about ET Young Leaders 2016

"Two of the candidates I met were from very humble backgrounds. One was from a poor farming community in Guntur. Now that individual is running $4 million of funds," he said. "If you look at his journey from essentially having to self-educate to where he is today, that is both spectacular and humbling."

The tests and selection were done in partnership with CEB SHL Talent Measurement Solutions before the CEO panel picked the final list. At least two candidates - Venkatesh Kommineni from IIFL and Namratha Agarwal from ZS Associates - flew in from the US twice to be a part of the programme. 

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