India’s Best CEOs 2025 awards: Agility and a customer-centric focus key to navigating volatile times, say India Inc.’s top minds
India’s Best CEOs 2025 awards: Agility and a customer-centric focus key to navigating volatile times, say India Inc.’s top minds
At Fortune India's Best CEOs Awards 2025, leaders emphasized agility and a customer-centric approach as key to thriving in uncertain times. CK Venkatraman highlighted Titan's Bharat-centric evolution, while Satish Pai stressed focusing on controllable factors. Rajesh Jejurikar shared Mahindra's EV journey, and Abhishek Lodha discussed India's real estate growth amid economic transitions.
Leaders cited the example of how they overcame the turbulence induced by the pandemic and emerged on the winning side through sheer resilience
Agility and a customer-centric focus are some of the key tenets that have contributed to the resilience of leadership in volatile and uncertain times, leaders said during a panel discussion titled ‘Leadership in Turbulent Times’ at Fortune India’s Best CEOs 2025 awards in Mumbai on Monday.
According to C.K. Venkataraman, managing director, Titan Company, during the turbulent times of the Covid-19 pandemic, the company evolved itself with the conviction that two classes—the elite and the affluent—will grow two-fold in India. “We have become a Bharat-centric company, going to the smallest of towns in India. We are also a franchise-led company, with more than 1,000 entrepreneurs innovating,” Venkataraman added.
Satish Pai, managing director and CEO, Hindalco Industries, said that it is critical to focus on the things that cannot be controlled, especially for a manufacturing company in a commodity market, where volatility has become the norm. “Do not read the headlines…run safe operations, and take care of your customers and employees, and over the periods of ups and downs, you will outperform,” he added.
Rajesh Jejurikar, executive director and CEO, auto and farm sectors, Mahindra & Mahindra, noted that when Mahindra began its journey in the EV space, it started with the humility of knowing that it did not know the space. “Once we got into that mindset, we had a clear sense of what we knew and excelled at, and everything else, we could go out and buy,” he said. According to Jejurikar, the EV space needed extremely agile decision-making to come out on top.
According to Abhishek Lodha, managing director and CEO, Lodha Developers, it was the company’s firm belief that India is transitioning from a low-income to a middle-income country, which would result in long real-estate cycles. “Real-estate and housing led to the creation of the middle class, and benefit from the middle class. While there will be ups and downs, there will be tough periods and bad years, we know that keeping leverage low is our mantra, while keeping an eye on what the customer wants, a customer that is aspirational and an economy that is growing,” he said.
