The annual study of India’s best CEOs is back! Like last year, BT partnered with consulting firm PwC to develop a robust evaluation methodology, incorporating both quantitative metrics and qualitative factors. The process for the 13th edition began with a data-driven analysis to identify the top three performers in each category. This year, we consolidated some sectors and redefined a few categories. For example, automobiles, wagons, FMCG, and consumer durables were grouped under ‘Manufacturing and Retail Excellence,’ while pharma, healthcare, transport, and logistics were grouped in the ‘Services Vanguards’ category and IT and ITes renamed as 'Tech Titans'.
There are 12 process-driven categories, and four jury awards that include Lifetime Achievement, Business Icon of the Year, Impact Icon of the Year and Most Trusted Leader, which was introduced this year.
To shortlist leaders, filters were implemented on the BT500 universe, consisting of the country’s most valuable companies in terms of one-year average market capitalisation. Only firms with revenue exceeding Rs 1,000 crore were included, with data sourced from Ace Equity. The study period was FY22, FY23 and FY24, and firms with accounting periods of 12 months were considered. Companies whose latest audited financial year results were not available, and those with a net loss in any of these three financial years were dropped. Firms that listed during the period were excluded from this ranking. Banking and NBFCs were not considered.
A total of 327 firms made the cut, of which CEOs (or executive heads) who had been on the job for the full study period were considered. In the case of PSUs, it was a minimum of one financial year. To arrive at the rankings, growth in total income, profit before interest and tax (PBIT) and total shareholder returns (TSR) were considered, with the results considered on a consolidated priority basis. Firms were assigned a score on the average of year-on-year absolute change and three-year CAGR in total income and PBIT, along with the geometric CAGR of TSR calculated using net price change plus dividends. Thereafter, scores were given to all parameters, which were added for the final result.
At the final stage, the names of Top 3 CEOs in each group were placed before the jury led by Deepak Parekh, Chairman, HDFC Life, for qualitative analysis. The other jury members were Sanjeev Krishan, Chairperson, PwC India; Bharat Puri, MD, Pidilite Industries; Amit Tandon, Founder & MD, Institutional Investor Advisory Services; Namita Thapar, Executive Director, Emcure Pharmaceuticals; Mathew Cyriac, Executive Chairman, Florintree Advisors; Manisha Girotra, CEO, Moelis India; and Amish Mehta, MD & CEO, Crisil.
This year we merged Unicorns and Soonicorns under the ‘Startup of the Year (SOTY)’ award. The data was sourced from Tracxn. Companies were shortlisted based on time taken to become a unicorn, latest valuations, and funding round in FY24 and after. Last year, we had introduced new categories including PSUs (renamed Bharat PSU Icon) and Clean Energy (renamed Green Growth Visionary), Best Deals (renamed The Deal Maker) and The Glocal CEO. The Deal Maker contenders were shortlisted based on top M&A deals since January 2023. The data was sourced from Grant Thornton. For Glocal CEOs, nominations were considered from firms whose overseas income has been rising for the last three years against total income. To narrow the list, firms that got between 10% and 50% of business from abroad were considered. The jury accepted the suggestion of PwC to add one more jury award: Most Trusted Leader based on the strong and trustworthy public image built by years of ethical leadership.
@iamrahuloberoi
