CP Gurnani is the CEO and the Managing Director of Tech Mahindra
Biography:
CP played a pivotal role in the transformational journey of Mahindra Satyam and spearheaded the company’s eventual merger with Tech Mahindra.
Gurnani has been appointed as Nasscom's chairman in April, 2016.
With extensive experience in international business development, start-ups and turnarounds, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, CP in many ways led Tech Mahindra's journey, where he contributed significantly to the company's strategy and philosophy. His inimitable style of leadership, combined with his sharp focus on customer experience, helped Mahindra Satyam and Tech Mahindra emerge as one of the leading providers in their respective competencies - IT Services and Telecom Solutions to the global telecom ecosystem.
In a career spanning 32 years, he has held several leading positions with HCL Hewlett Packard Limited, Perot Systems (India) Limited and HCL Corporation Ltd. He is a chemical engineering graduate from the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela.
Awards and Honors:
CP has been chosen as the Ernst and Young ‘Entrepreneur of the Year [Manager]’, CNBC Asia’s ‘India Business Leader of the Year’ and Dataquest ‘IT person of the Year’ - for the year 2013.
CP has also won the 'CEO of the Year' Award for year 2014 declared by Business Standard.
Early life and Education:
CP was born (December 19, 1958) in Neemuch, a small town in Madhya Pradesh and spent his early life in Chittorgarh, Kota, and Jaipur in Rajasthan. He has a degree in chemical engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela.
He is the chairman of a wide variety of companies, including Adventrix Pharmaceuticals. He also owns the Vector Group. He is known as a corporate raider, especially after his hostile takover of TWA in the mid 80s.
Chanda Kochhar (born 17 November 1961) is the managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) of ICICI Bank. She is widely recognised for her role in shaping retail banking in India.
With a firm belief in her heart and living by her own belief that women in any organization can grow just by their merit and not by special favours and privileges due to their gender – Chanda Kochhar has listed herself as one of the 50 most powerful women in business in the Fortune Global 2014 analysis. This Indian lady is world renowned for her corporate leadership and bold decision making skills. She is the current Managing Director and the Chief Executive Officer of the ICICI Bank which is India’s largest privatised financial institution. She is the leading example of today’s women and her empowerment to make the world a better place to live in.
Being an important persona of the core ICICI team she helped the organisation empower its wings and fly at distant skies. Her vision was far beyond the local level. It was she had the courage to keep working hours of the bank be 12 hours whereas rest all brands worked for 7 hours in a day. She is one of the few bankers who envisioned the idea of2000 ATM machine installations throughout India promoting electronic banking in a large scale. ICICI bank received the recognition to be the “Best Retail Bank in India” for the years 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2005 under her lead.
Achievements –
Retail Banker of the Year honour by the Asian Banker in the year 2004
Business Woman of the Year recognition by the Economic Times in the year 2005
Rising Star Award by the Retail Banker International in 2006
She was featured in the list of “30 Most Powerful Woman Leaders” in business for eight years continuously.
Transformational Business Leader of the Year by the All India Management Association in the year 2010
Chanda Kochhar was ranked the 10th in position in the list by Fortune of “ Most Powerful Women in Business” during 2010
Achieved 92nd rank in Forbes list of “Most Powerful Woman” for 2010.
The CNBC TV 18 awarded her in the year 2010 as the “Outstanding Woman Business Leader of the Year”.
Her name got the rank to be the 11th in the Financial Times list for the “Top 50 Woman in World Business
She was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in the year 2011
Chandni Jafri is a New Media Evangelist, Advisor, Mentor, Business Head and Theatre Producer & Actor. She is the Founder & Executive Director of Sound and Light Social Ventures Pvt. Ltd. (SLSV), a Global Media Resource, Research, Rating & Consultancy Network in the domain of Corporate Social Responsibility in India.
She is also the Director of Media Company Sound & Light Productions, engaged in producing light and sound shows, stage shows, books, radio plays and television content. It is devoted to promotion of local arts, culture, fine and classical art forms and gives it a global stage.
As a member of Indo-Canadian Business Chamber Media & Entertainment committee, she focuses on mutually beneficial trade, investment & alliance opportunities in the Indo-Canada corridor.
Career:
Chandni started her career with Madison, India and soon became the Media Group Head. She then moved to CNBC-TV18 as the Head – Strategic Account and was a core member of the start-up team. She shifted to the sister company Web18 as the National Head – Sales & Alliances.
Chandni was offered the role of Vice President – SAARC Region at Visage Media Services (Getty Images) and shifted to London. She returned to Mumbai, India as Senior Vice President – Media Services VJIVE Networks.
In 2008, she partnered with The VCCircle Network as the Business Director and was instrumental in growing the company from pre-revenue to profitability in a span of 5 yrs. She structured and led the monetization model, future strategies, sales & marketing function, research and brand management.
In 2014, she launched her own venture, Sound and Light Social Ventures Pvt. Ltd. a Global Media Resource, Research, Rating & Consultancy Network in the domain of Corporate Social Responsibility in India.
The key mandate across her professional tenure has been to kick start projects/divisions/start-up media enterprises with core skill areas as strategy, sales, research & brand building.
Awards and Honors :
Profiled as Top 25 women CEOs by The Times of India feature on Women leaders in Media & Entertainment.
Charles Edelstenne - Chairman/Dassault Systemes
Full Name : Charles Edelstenne
Born : 9th - Jan - 1938
Zodiac Sign : Capricorn
Birth Place : Paris
Country : France
Occupation : CEO
Industry : Business
Networth : $1 Billion
Early Life:
A qualified accountant turned businessman, Charles Edelstenne had earned an immense fame for his name due to his skills and dedication towards his company, Dassault. Charles joined the firm as an accountant and got continuous promotions throughout his career, leading him to the position of CEO and chairman, including several others. The firm is known to produce 3D models of products for the management of their life cycle, which has grown exponentially under the guidance of Mr. Edelstenne.
Charles Edelstenne gained his accountancy qualification and started serving the military in Morocco. By 1959, when he was 21, he had finished his service in the military and started looking for a job to settle down in his life. With the support of his friend, Albert Pottier, who was a private secretary to Marcel Dassault, the founder of Dassault Systems, Charles landed a job at the company. General Secretary, Pierre Francois, also assisted him during his career and Edelstenne started climbing the ladder of success with his eminent personality and on the job skills.
It was in 1981 when Charles gained a confident position in the eyes of his boss as he successfully accomplished a difficult task of nationalization record preparation assigned to him. In the same year, he created a group subsidiary, named Dassault Systemes and started serving as its president. In 1985, he became a strong contender for the rank of vice president, but the sudden death of Marcel in the next year restricted him from any promotion, as the main focus turned towards the succession of the business. Even on this run, Edlestenne had been observed as a great fit, but the son of ex-president, Serge Dasssault, took over the responsibility, rolling down Charles to the post of vice president.
Charles saved the firm, a sum of around $100 million in 1986, when a Falcon 900 flew and landed near the HQs of Learjet and Cessna, attracting a claim of $125 million from the owner, drexel burnham. The negotiations were led by Bloch admiral and agreed with English speaker, Adele Edlestenne, wife of Charles Edlestenne. Also, Charles battled for the Rafale’s price with the Ministry of Defense’s representatives, which was released as per his terms after a few weeks.
Charles showed a commendable faith towards the company and took over all the responsibilities of his new job, leading the firm to new heights with the imposition of strategy for the development of highly valued aircrafts. All his efforts and loyalty to the firm reverted with a golden opportunity for the accountant when he replaced Serge as the head of Dassault Aviation in 2000.
Achievements:
Charles also served as the Dassault Aviation’s CEO till 2013, after which, he was succeeded by Eric Trappier, but he continued to serve as the chairman of the organization, Dassault Systemes.
The hard work and struggle of Edelstenne is an inspiring example to all the budding accountants who fear smaller limits to the field. With determination, everything is possible.
He used to be the CEO of New World Development. The company actually started out as a jewelry business called Chow Tai Fook. It eventually expanded to other businesses and became Chai Tai Fook. New World Development now owns five high-end hotels around the world and properties in Hong Kong and Macau. It also owns Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan and the Sheraton Marina hotels.
Chris DeWolfe (born 1966) is an American entrepreneur, and one of the creators of Myspace (along with Tom Anderson), of which he is also the former CEO. He has the sixth account ever made on the site. During DeWolfe's tenure, MySpace became the top social network, with over 135 million worldwide unique visitors a month.Under DeWolfe, music became a defining feature of MySpace, which was credited with challenging and reinventing the music label industry [2] with the MySpace Music section, which allowed unsigned artists to post their music for free and launched the careers of several famous musicians, among them Lily Allen and Sean Kingston. Currently, DeWolfe is the CEO of Social Gaming Network (SGN).
DeWolfe got his vision for MySpace while taking a course titled, "The Impact of Tech on Media and Entertainment," during the final year of his college. In the final project for his class, DeWolfe created "Sitegeist" which had elements of CitySearch, Match.com mixed with the function of IM. DeWolfe got an "A" on his project and used it as inspiration in creating MySpace.
DeWolfe was integral to the sale of MySpace to News Corporation in 2005 for $580 million and remained as its CEO until March 2009, at which point, MySpace was larger than its competitor, Facebook. On April 22, 2009, News Corp. announced DeWolfe would step down as CEO and will be a strategic adviser to Myspace and serve on the board of MySpace China. The former Facebook executive Owen Van Natta replaced him.
In 2010, DeWolfe won backing from Austin Ventures to purchase MindJolt, a social gaming platform, with former MySpace colleagues Aber Whitcomb and Colin Digiaro. In 2011, MindJolt became one of the few multi platform game developers when it acquired two additional companies—SGN, a mobile games company, and Hallpass Media, a free online gaming network.In February 2012, Mindjolt officially changed its name to Social Gaming Network.SGN went on to acquire video game developer Mob Science in June 2013. In July 2015, SGN announced an investment of $130 million from Netmarble Games, the number one mobile games publisher in South Korea.
DeWolfe went to Lincoln High School,then graduated from the University of Washington in 1988, where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi Fraternity. DeWolfe also has an MBA from the University of Southern California. He was honored by the school as Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year in 2006.He won the prestigious E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year award in June 2015.He has been profiled in many major publications such as The New York Times,USA Today,Fortune, and BusinessWeek, and also is an investor in the travel site, GoGoBot. In 2006, DeWolfe was named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in the world. In 2007, he was chosen by Barbara Walters as one of her 10 most fascinating people and won the Producers Guild of America's Vanguard Award in 2009. DeWolfe also served on the board of trustees of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and is currently on the board of directors for Woven Digital.
Chris T. Sullivan (born February 15, 1948, in Lake City, Florida) is one of the founders of Outback Steakhouse and OSI Restaurant Partners, LLC. He also formerly held the titles of director and chairman. He is currently a board member at Bloomin’ Brands.
Early life:
Sullivan graduated from the University of Kentucky with a BS in Business and Economics in 1972. Sullivan's restaurant management career began in 1972 as restaurant manager trainee in the Steak & Ale restaurant group.
Career:
Sullivan and co-founders Bob Basham, Tim Gannon and Trudy Cooper opened the first Outback Steakhouse in March 1988. His management of the company saw the chain expand into a worldwide company, with more than 900 restaurants worldwide. He also expanded the brand into numerous subsidiaries, including Carrabba's Italian Grill, Fleming's Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar, Cheeseburger in Paradise, Bonefish Grill, Paul Lee's Chinese Kitchen and several other hospitality-related businesses.
From February 1991 to March 2005, Sullivan was CEO of OSI Restaurant Partners, Inc. (now called OSI Restaurant Partners, LLC). From August 1987 to February 1991, he was president of the company.
In an interview with Inc.com, Sullivan stated his biggest mistake in his career was the way he handled the rollout of Carrabba's Italian Grill. “With Outback we would approach a new market by developing one new restaurant in the first year and two or three more in the second year. With Carrabba's, we developed four, five, and six restaurants in the first year. We should have gone in and made sure our franchisee partners had opened their first restaurant in a successful manner before we started with a second one.”, he told the interviewer, going on to reveal that not getting the people side right at the restaurant caused major problems that took two years to correct and “a lot of money”".
In 2009, he was acting mentor to Virginia-based restaurant chain Café Caturra.
In recent times, Sullivan has moved into investment; in April 2015, Sullivan led a $2.2 million funding round for the tech startup SiteZeus, a company that automates the site selection process for the restaurant, retail and hospitality industries.
In addition to his current roles, Sullivan serves several organisations in various positions including Florida Council of 100 Executive Committee, the Florida Chamber of Commerce; the board of for the Florida Council on Economic Education, Lowry Park Zoological Endowment Foundation; chairman's board of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America; co-chair and board of Kentucky Speedway; the advisory board for the Salvation Army; and vice chairman for Scripps Florida’s funding board; and the Employment Policies Institute.
In 2014, Sullivan was inducted into the Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame
Christie Ann Hefner (born November 8, 1952) is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Playboy Enterprises, the company created by her father, Hugh Hefner. She stepped down from her position at Playboy on January 30, 2009. She has often worked with the progressive political organization Center for American Progress. Their site describes her as having "long been involved in electing progressive candidates, advancing women, First Amendment issues, and advancing treatment for people with HIV/AIDS." She is currently executive chairman of Canyon Ranch Enterprises, chairman of the board of Hatch Beauty, board member and strategic advisor of Luminary Digital Media, and global editorial advisory boardmember of Reuters.
Early life:
Hefner was born in Wilmette, Illinois. She is the daughter of Mildred (Williams) and Hugh Hefner. Her parents had separated by the time she was five. When her mother remarried, she moved to Wilmette, Illinois. There she graduated from New Trier High School. She attended the National Music Camp at Interlochen during the summers from 1964-1969.
She graduated summa cum laude from Brandeis University with a bachelor's degree in English and American literature in 1974. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year.
Career:
After college, she started working at Playboy. After four years, she was promoted to vice president.
In 1982, she became president of Playboy Enterprises, and was made chairman of the board and CEO in 1988. The company acquired adult-oriented businesses such as Spice Network and ClubJenna.
In 2008, she released a memo to employees about her efforts to streamline the company's operations, including eliminating its DVD division and laying off staff.
On December 8, 2008, she announced her plans to step down as CEO of Playboy as of January 31, 2009.Hefner said that the election of Barack Obama as the next U.S. president had inspired her to give more time to charitable work, and that the decision to step down was her own. "Just as this country is embracing change in the form of new leadership, I have decided that now is the time to make changes in my own life as well," she said.
In May 2011, she was named executive chairman of Canyon Ranch Enterprises, a resort company that operates six premier spa destinations and an online website providing health and wellness advice.
Philanthropy:
Hefner created the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award in honor of her father, and has helped to raise $30 million to build the CORE Center in Chicago, the first outpatient facility in the Midwest for people with AIDS.
Chris McCormick (born in Bridgeport, Connecticut) is the former chief executive officer of L.L.Bean mail-order, online and retail company based in Freeport, Maine. He is the first non-family member to have held this position at L.L. Bean. McCormick joined the company in 1983 as an advertising manager and was the chief marketing officer before assuming the role of president and CEO in May 2001. On November 3, 2015, Stephen Smith was named the fourth President and CEO of L.L.Bean. , with McCormick retiring from the company.
McCormick is a member of the Advisory Council of the Charles F. Dolan School of Business at Fairfield University.
Education
McCormick graduated from Fairfield University Dolan School of Business in 1977 and completed the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program in 2000.