Sanjeev Nanda on Kumar Mangalam Birla

Kumar Mangalam Birla is the Chairman of the Aditya Birla Group. The group is India's third largest business house. Major companies of Aditya Birla Group in India are Grasim, Hindalco, UltraTech Cement, Aditya Birla Nuvo and Idea Cellular. Aditya Birla Group's joint ventures include Birla Sun Life (Financial Services) and Birla NGK (Insulators). The group also has its presence in various countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Egypt, Canada, China and Australia.

Born on June 14, 1967, Kumar Mangalam Birla spent the early of his life in Calcutta and Mumbai. He is a Chartered Accountant and did his MBA (Masters in Business Administration) from the London Business School, London. Kumar Mangalam Birla took over as Chairman in 1995, at the age of 28, after sudden demise of his father, noted industrialist Aditya Birla, after whom the group is named.

When Kumar Mangalam Birla assumed the mantle at the Aditya Birla Group, Doubts were raised about his ability to handle a giant business house with interests spanning viscose, textiles and garments on the one hand and cement, aluminium and fertilisers on the other. But Kumar Mangalam proved his skeptics wrong. He brought in radical changes, changed business strategies, professionalised the entire group and replaced internal systems. Kumar Mangalam reduced his group's dependence on the cyclic commodities sectors by entering consumer products.


Under Kumar Mangalam Birla's leadership, the Aditya Birla Group, apart from consolidating its position in existing businesses, also ventured into sunrise sectors like cellular telephony, asset management, software and BPO.

Kumar Mangalam Birla also holds several key positions on various regulatory and professional boards, including chairmanship of the advisory committee constituted by the ministry of company affairs for 2006 and 2007, membership of the prime minister of India's advisory council on trade and industry, chairmanship of the board of trade reconstituted by the union minister of commerce and industry, and membership of the Central Board of Directors of the Reserve Bank of India.

Kumar Mangalam Birla has won several honors. Major among them include The Business Leader of the Year (2003) by The Economic Times, Business Man of the Year - 2003 by Business India, and The Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year - India in 2005.

Nandan Nilekani  born (June 2, 1955) is an Indian businessman and the former CEO of Infosys Technologies. He currently serves as the Chairman of the new Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), after a successful career at Infosys. He is also heading government of India's technology committee called as TAGUP. 

Along with Narayan Murthy, he was one of the co-founders of Infosys. He has served as a director on the company's board since its inception in 1981. Before assuming the post of CEO in March 2002, Nandan Nilekani held the post of Managing Director, President and Chief Operating Officer.  

Nanda Nilekani was born in Bangalore. His father Mohan Nilekani was a manager in Minerva Mills. Nandan Nilekani had his initial schooling in Bangalore. Due to his father's transferable job Nandan moved to his uncle's place at Dharwad at the age of 12. This taught Nandan Nilekani to be independent. In 1973, at the age of 18, Nanda Nilekani got admission in IIT Mumbai. The stint at IIT Mumbai transformed Nanda Nilekani from a small town boy to a confident mature man. The lessons he learnt here-meritocracy; the ability to work as part of a team; hard work; and the importance of giving back to the society-have stood him in good stead.

After graduating in electrical engineering from IIT Mumbai in 1978, Nandan Nilekani joined Patni Computers. Here he worked under Narayan Murthy. Three years later in 1981, Nanda Nilekani along with Narayan Murthy and five other co-founders founded Infosys. While Narayan Murthy stayed in India, Nandan Nilekani shifted to the US to take care of Infosys' interests there. He was the company's marketing face.

In 1980s and 90s Nandan Nilekani and his team worked hard to build Infosys. Today Infosys' success story has become a legend in India's corporate history. Today, Infosys has an employee strength of 58,000, annual revenue of $2 billion and $21 billion capitalization.

Nandan Nilekani is recipient of several honors and awards. In January 2006, Nandan became one of the youngest entrepreneurs to join 20 global leaders on the prestigious World Economic Forum (WEF) Foundation Board. He figures among one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine, 2006. In 2005 he was awarded the prestigious Joseph Schumpeter prize for innovative services in field of economy, economic sciences and politics. In 2006, Nandan Nilekani was conferred the Padma Bhushan, one of the highest civilian honors of India.

Anil Ambani The Indian Business Baron

Anil Ambani (born June 4, 1959) is an Indian business baron and chairman of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. As of 2010^[update], he is the fourth richest Indian with a personal wealth of $13.7 billion, behind Mukesh Ambani, Lakshmi Mittal and Azim Premji.

He is a member of the Board of Overseers at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the member of the Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur; Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He is a member of the Central Advisory Committee, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission. In March 2006, he resigned. He is also the Chairman of Board of Governors of DA-IICT, Gandhinagar.

Ambani joined Reliance, the company founded by his late father Dhirubhai Ambani, in 1983 as Co-Chief Executive Officer and is credited with having pioneered many financial innovations in the Indian capital markets. One of his major achievements in the entertainment industry is the takeover of Adlabs, the movie production to distribution to multiplex company that owns India's only dome theatre and the recently announced joint venture worth US$ 825 million with Steven Spielberg.

SOME INFO ON HIS PERSONAL LIFE


Anil Ambani is Gujarati Indian. He is married to Indian Bollywood Actress Tina Munim and has two sons Anmol and Anshul. He has taken part in the Mumbai Marathon race. Ambani is also a fan of Coca-Cola Championship club, Newcastle United and was extremely close to buying the club in September 2008. In June 2004, Anil was elected as an Independent Member of the Rajya Sabha - Upper House, Parliament of India with the support of the Samajwadi Party. He wakes up daily at 4:00am, checks the news and then goes for a run.

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

• Voted the 3rd most powerful person in India in the 2009 India Today Power List, in March.
• Voted Businessman of the Year 2006 by Times of India-TNS Poll.
• Adjudged as the CEO of the Year at the prestigious Platts Global Energy Awards for 2004.
• Voted as 'MTV Youth Icon of the Year for 2003' in September 2003.
• Conferred 'The Entrepreneur of the Decade Award' by the Bombay Management Association, October 2002.
• Awarded the First Wharton Indian Alumni Award by the Wharton India Economic Forum (WIEF) in recognition of his contribution to the establishment of Reliance as a global leader in many of its business areas, December 2001.
• Conferred the ' Businessman of the Year 1997' award by India's leading business magazine Business India, December 1997.

Akon Performs at Sanjeev Nanda’s Sangeet Night

The high profile sangeet of businessman Sanjeev Nanda, had everything that Punjabi weddings are so famous for-there was the usual bunch of glitterati from Delhi and Mumbai, a chic décor, lavish food and drinks  and generous gifts for guests.

And if you thought the extravagance stopped at this, hold on. The ‘showstopper’ at the gala sangeet event was none other than ace American rapper Akon, whose Delhi appearance is a prelude to his impending Mumbai visit where he is slated to perform at Shahrukh Khan’s IPL 3 bash.

Akon, like a true star of the evening entered the bash only after midnight wearing an unassuming black jeans and tee combo in keeping with his trademark rapper style. Guests began trickling in from 9 pm itself and were eagerly awaiting the performance of the talented musician. Performing for a little over two hours, Akon’s show was well interspersed by a line-up of other artists, one of which was the UK based RDB band. RDB is famous for their fusion bollywood songs filmed for Akshay Kumar’s flicks.

The much talked about sangeet was held at a sprawling farmhouse in the Saket area and guests who graced the buzzing pre-wedding event were-Ramona Narang Rodella, Timmy and Eesha Narang, Priya Chatwal, Manav Gangwani, Adnan Sami and wife Roya, Rohit Rajpal, Amar Singh, Vijay Arora, Bakul Nath and many more. The slick decor was done up in hues of blue in keeping with the theme by designer Tarun Tahiliani. Sanjeev Nanda looked dapper in a traditional shwerwani and his long time girlfriend and bride-to-be Medha Bhatnagar was resplendent in a legenga.

Earlier the glittering couple had Rahat Fateh Ali Khan performing for them at a pre-wedding ghazal do.