Exclusive | We do our awards very differently: Forbes India's Gurmeet Singh

All the 'thought leaders', business and media veterans came together cheering for Forbes India Leadership Awards 2012 ceremony over the weekend. After an amazing response from Forbes India Leadership Awards 2011, the team conducted India Leadership Awards 2012 which again turned out with an unexpected response.

 

Adgully spoke to Gurmeet Singh, CEO, Forbes India to know more about the occasion this year.

 

When asked about this year’s theme, ‘Seeing What Next' and how did the thought come about, Singh said, “The theme was conceptualized from the mother theme which was 'transformational leaders'. So it’s for the entrepreneurs and leaders who are basically transformational in their approach. Thus, in that context the theme for this year was ‘seeing what’s next’.” He believes that a very important aspect in a leader is that he / she can see the bend on the road before anyone else and therefore the theme goes very well with the mother theme.

 

In terms of award categories that they have, Singh believes that this year they broke the mould by making it a little more fun and interactive. He says, “We have speakers speak in a different format where we were not sure if people might like it or not. But yes, we did get a lot of appreciation.”

 

“So the learning from this year is that we should continue to experiment. Since, as times are changing we cannot be having a laid back approach; in times when interactivity is extremely important, the changing face of media with the growing role, power and impact of social media,” he added.

 

As per Singh, since the award categories remain the same, as last year, the brief to the jury hasn't changed and also nothing has been altered as far as the judging parameters or selection process is concerned, they remain standardized as per Forbes format. Only what changed or added another angle was the fact that there was a new theme or dimension added.

 

Speaking about the two things that differentiate Forbes India Leadership Awards 2012 from 2011 awards, Singh said, “We do our awards very differently and try to break the mould. For example last we had an art walk at the award function. Whereas this year, we broke away from the run-of-the-mill regular panel discussion and instead we had each speaker speak on the theme for 3 minutes.” Adding further he told us that a keen interest was taken so as to improve interactivity with the every individual who attended the Forbes India leadership Award 2012. He says, “We had Ipads at every table of the award ceremony and the Ipad enabled them to read about the awards what the speakers were saying and also they could vote at that moment on whether they liked or disliked what the speaker said in his 3 minutes.”

 

Also, certain questions were asked during the ceremony and the answers and polls were immediately reflected on the screen. So with this they could generate massive interactivity between people who attended the awards. 

 

When asked one new thing that he would want to add next year, he very strongly said, “In fact all 10 categories are unique in their own sense. Thus not speaking about one particular category the common thing that binds all these categories is ‘entrepreneur’. So whether it’s a start up or a lifetime achievement, entrepreneurship is the single binding thread for all of them.”   

 

Singh concluded by saying, “Though the awards are just in the second year, they have, I believe become the most prestigious in the given space with a brand like Forbes India at the back end recognizing the who’s – who of the business fraternity.”