Nasscom honours the spirit of business excellence and leadership among global organizations

NASSCOM announced the winners of the NASSCOM Global Leadership Awards 2007. The Awards, conceptualized and presented by NASSCOM, seek to applaud the mega corporations that have transformed, not just the international business scenario, but also impacted the Indian economy and contributed to its growth. The winners will be felicitated by Mr. Kapil Sibbal, Honorable Union Minister for Science and Technology and Ocean Development, Government of India at an awards ceremony today evening in Mumbai on the sidelines of the NASSCOM 2007 India Leadership Forum.

The Global Leadership Awards recognize the work of individuals, who have blended vision, innovation, business acuity, thought leadership and commitment to IT deployment, to give their organizations an unchallenged competitive edge within their domains.

These special Awards brought to the fore some of the best known names and faces in the realm of business during 2005 and 2006. Past recipients of these prestigious Awards included Ms. Carly Fiorina of HP; Mr. Craig Barrett of Intel, Mr. Masamoto Yashiro of the Shinsei Bank, Mr. Henrich Pierer of Siemens and Mr. Stephen Green of the HSBC Bank. These winners were applauded for their work in areas such as vision, creativity, excellence in IT usage, technology innovation and business leadership.

The NASSCOM 2007 Global Leadership Award seeks to pay tribute to the winners in Business Leader, Innovative Business Model and Global India categories and laud their pioneering work. The goal this year is also to identify global Indians—people who have helped build the vital bridge between India and the other key markets and helped create linkages and special partnerships between the Silicon Valleys of these countries. It has been the effort of such individuals that have enabled India to take the next steps in its globalization journey and make a bid for leadership in these regions.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM, said, “In an effort to recognise and promote business excellence through innovation and entrepreneurship, NASSCOM instituted the Global Leadership Awards three years back. The awards aim to recognise the contribution of individuals and companies to the overall growth and development of the Indian economy. Through these Awards, the Indian IT industry and NASSCOM salutes those individuals whose organizations have made a difference to the Indian economy and helped change the lives of over one billion Indians.”

Mr. Samuel J. Palmisano, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, IBM Corporation has been selected for the ‘NASSCOM Business Leadership Award’ for sustaining the growth, innovation and momentum of his company. Over the last decade and a half, Mr. Palmisano has taken on a number of significant challenges, from building the company’s services business to transforming its server line and has strategically defined a robust future roadmap for his company.

The ‘NASSCOM Innovative Business Model Award’ has been presented to Mr. Patrick Snowball, Group Executive Director, Aviva plc for leading his company within the global insurance vertical and making it the biggest name in the UK Insurance market. Aviva has a large presence in India, where it has deployed an innovative BOT model that has enabled it to harness the local knowledge and expertise contributing greatly to the growth of the Indian BPO industry. The company has also provided a balanced perspective on the issue of outsourcing and has used the India-based BPO/IT as a key strategic weapon to grow shareholder value.

The ‘NASSCOM Global Indian Award’ has been presented to Professor Amartya Kumar Sen for his pioneering work in the areas of human development theory, welfare economics, the underlying mechanisms of poverty and political liberalism. The winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, this visionary has done India proud by influencing the world with his powerful articles and books, which have been translated in 30 languages.