‘India’s Best CIOs’ is the country’s only community-driven CIO Awards. With the ground-breaking approach of peer voting, these awards recognize India’s best 50 CIOs in a democratic process, where CIOs vote for the peers they admire and respect the most.

In the second edition, IBC saw an almost 50% increase in participation. 449 CIOs polled 1,334 votes for their peers across the country. A new category, ‘India’s Most Eminent CIO’ was added in this edition, to encourage participation of all members of the Indian Enterprise IT industry.

The winners of India’s Best CIOs were honored on 23 July, 2015 at Hyatt Regency, Mumbai. Themed ‘Winning through Transformative Leadership’, the evening saw enthusiastic participation from the Indian CIO community.

Mr Sourav Ganguly, Ex-Captain of the Indian National Cricket team and Mr Arvind Gupta, National Head, Information and Technology of Bharatiya Janata Party, along with Mr Gaurav Chand, Global Vice President of Marketing for Dell’s Enterprise Solutions Group were keynote speakers at the event, who also presented the awards to the winning CIOs.

Mr Sourav Ganguly, Ex-Captain of Indian National Cricket team delivered a keynote address on ”Winning through Transformative Leadership.”

Mr Gaurav Chand, Global Vice President of Marketing for Dell’s Enterprise Solutions Group spoke about Transformative Leadership: The Dell Story

Mr Arvind Gupta, National Head, Information and Technology of Bharatiya Janata Party spoke about How Technology changed General Elections in India, the World’s largest democracy. Mr Gupta currently heads the Digital India Foundation which works on Digital Inclusion, Internet Governance and Smart cities

Panel Discussion – Transformative Leadership (Moderated by Mr Tapan Garg – Founder & CEO of CIO Association of India)

FIRST PLACE

Mr Vijay Sethi
VP & CIO at Hero MotoCorp Ltd.

“Being awarded as India’s Best CIO for the second consecutive edition is a very humbling experience. Continuous IT innovation to ensure that IT investments deliver high value consistently to the business especially in today’s times of a very demanding business landscape is the key differentiating factor of a successful IT team. My colleagues at Hero and my family have played a key role in helping me achieving this title once again and my sincerest thanks to all of them. I am also grateful to the CIO Association of India and Dell for this initiative.”

Winning Case Study: For leading ‘auto Data eXchange’- A data exchange platform for Indian Automotive Industry. First joint IT initiative of 2 major Indian industry bodies: Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) and Auto Component Manufacturers Association (ACMA).

Mr Vijay Sethi was also the winner for India’s Best CIOs 2013. Due to a family engagement he could not attend the Awards Event but he sent a very thoughtful video message.

Mr Vikas Malhotra
GM Business Solutions, Hero MotoCorp Ltd.

Receiving the award on behalf of Mr Vijay Sethi.

THIRD PLACE

Mr Ajit Manocha
Associate Vice President & CIO at Syngene International Ltd.

“It is indeed an honor to be selected for the ‘India’s Best CIO’ award 2015. In today’s competitive business environment IT plays a vital role in delivering business value. It is imperative for IT to partner with business and go beyond of just serving them as an internal customer. I am grateful to have found such an opportunity within Syngene to ensure a cohesive partnership between the business and the IT department. This award is dedicated to my entire IT team and business colleagues who stood by me at all the times.”

Winning Case Study: For First of its kind implementation of SAP solutions across a Contract Research Organization (CRO) worldwide.

Mr Suneel Aradhye
Group CIO at RPG Group

“Getting honored as the 3rd Best CIO in the country is an exciting as well as humbling moment. I remember and dedicate this award to all my colleagues and peers in present and past organizations wherein I had an opportunity to work and learn under highly able mentors/seniors. In IT, good work translates to better and perceivable business benefits. This in itself is very encouraging.”

Winning Case Study: For Developing a Bid Management System – unique solution in the global EPC/Infrastructure Industry as part of an extensive Business Transformation Program.

Mr Ajay Kumar Meher
Sr. Vice President & Head – IT and Post Production and New Media at Sony Entertainment Television

Mr Alok Kumar
CIO at Tata Consultancy Services

Mr Anil Nadkarni
CIO at MAHYCO (Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company)

Mr Anjani Kumar
CIO at Safexpress Pvt Ltd

Ms Aruna Rao
CTO at Kotak Mahindra Bank

Mr Avinash Velhal
Group CIO, VP, Head IT & Process at Atos International

Mr G Radhakrishna Pillai
CIO at Super Religare Diagnostics (Formerly Known as SRL Ranbaxy)

Mr Girish Rao
Head IT at Marico Industires

Mr Jagdish Belwal
CIO at Tata Motors

Mr Manish Choksi
Chief – Corporate Strategy & CIO at Asian Paints

Mr Meheriar Patel
Head Technology, Global Infrastructure at Sun Pharma

Mr Milind Khamkar
Group CIO at SUPER-MAX

Mr Mukesh Kumar Jain
Group CTO at Reliance Capital

Mr Mukund Prasad
Ex- Welspun Group

Mr Muralidharan Ramachandran
CIO at Syntel

Mr Nandkishor Dhomne
VP-IT & CIO at Manipal Group

Mr Narayanan Subramanyam
CIO at United Spirits Ltd

Mr Prakash Dharmani
Global CIO at Essel Propack Ltd

Mr Pravin Savant
CTO at Lowe Lintas

Mr MG Raghuraman
CIO at Mphasis

Mr Ranendra Datta
VP – IT at SABMiller India Ltd

Mr S C Mittal
Sr. ED (MIS & IT) & Group CTO, IFFCO & Director at IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Ltd

Mr S Francis Rajan
Executive VP ICT at Premier Airways Ltd

Mr S P Arya
CIO at Amtek Group

Mr Satish Pendse
President at Highbar Technologies Ltd

Mr Shailesh Joshi
Head Corporate IT & CIO at Godrej Industries Ltd

Mr Shirish Gariba
CIO at DIESL-Drive India Enterprise Solutions Ltd

Mr Srinivas Tata
CIO at Adani Ports & SEZ

Mr Subbarao Hegde
Ex-GMR Group

Mr Subramanian Chittur
Head IT at Metro Cash and Carry India Ltd

Mr Sudhir Kumar Reddy
CIO at Aricent

Mr Suresh A Shan
National Head – Business Information Technology Solutions at Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services

Mr Umesh Jain
Ex-CIO & CTO at NSE

Mr V Subramaniam
Director IT & CIO, South Asia Pacific at UTC Building & Industrial Systems (A United Technologies Company)

Mr Veneeth Purushotaman
CIO at Bharti Retail

Mr Venkat Iyer
Global CIO at Wockhardt Ltd

Mr VVR Babu
SVP & Group CIO at Ex-ITC Ltd

Mr Yateen Chodnekar
Group CIO at Writer Corporation

Mr Yogesh Zope
Group CIO at Bharat Forge

Click here to see the Awards Ceremony Pictures http://bit.ly/IBC201415AwardsCeremony

Click here to see the Speaker Sessions and Other Pictures http://bit.ly/IBC201415SpeakerSessions

While congratulating the winners Mr Gaurav Chand (Global Vice President of Marketing for Dell – Enterprise Solutions Group) shared:

“These are exciting times for CIOs. The dynamic nature of technology has brought with it greater possibilities for efficiency, productivity, and opportunities for innovation than ever before. It is certainly an honor for me to interact with Indian CIOs who are leading impactful innovation and we at Dell will do everything to enable and empower them to excel in their business.”

We are extremely thankful to our distinguished India’s Best CIOs Awards Jury Members for their valuable contribution towards judging the Top 10 Peer Ranked CIOs and identifying the Top 3 among them (via evaluation of their case studies) for the honor of India’s Best CIOs – Top 3 Positions.

“This is certainly recognition of a very unique kind because it is recognition by the people who understand the industry, the domain and therefore understand both the difficulty level and the impact. This award is also completely unbiased.” – Mr Pravir Vohra (Jury Member).