The Airbenders: For India’s Best CEOs, Ambition Drives Execution

“EXECUTIVES ARE NOT paid for doing things they like to do. They are paid for getting the right things done — most of all in their specific task, the making of effective decisions.” Management guru Peter Drucker mentioned this in his 1967 classic, The Effective Executive. Six decades on, this profound insight continues to be relevant, especially in an increasingly unpredictable world punctuated by geopolitical skirmishes, led by the world’s biggest and most advanced economy. While disruptions have for long been the only constant for businesses, closer home the challenges for India Inc., thriving in a largely domestic-oriented economy, have been manifold in recent years — right from disruptive to transformational. Against this backdrop, Fortune India’s list of India’s Best CEOs is an apt portrayal of how leaders, be it professionals or promoter-owners, have been guiding their businesses through a chaotic landscape. The methodology, created in association with knowledge partner EY, dwells on three parameters: net sales, profit after tax, and total shareholder return. Each measure was assigned a weightage of 33.33%. The findings were then presented to a jury comprising an eclectic mix of corporate experience and investing acumen. Chaired by Dr. Sanjiv Goenka, chairman, RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, the panellists comprised: K.V.S. Manian, MD & CEO, Federal Bank; Zia Mody, co-founder & managing partner, AZB & Partners; Prashant Jain, founder & chief investment officer, 3P Investment Managers; Devina Mehra, founder, chairperson & MD, First Global; and Dinesh Kanabar, CEO, Dhruva Advisors LLP. While the deliberations were intense, the outcome was consensual: the CEOs who made the cut continue to be among the best in the business. From conglomerates exceeding ₹1 lakh crore in revenue to emerging enterprises breaking new ground in the ₹1,000-crore bracket, every category tells a story of ambition meeting execution. The income-based awards celebrate the art of scaling: S.N. Subrahmanyan (L&T) for steering industrial giant Larsen & Toubro; Dilip Shanghvi (Sun Pharma) for globalising Indian pharma; Sunil Vachani (Dixon Technologies) for driving India’s manufacturing renaissance; and P. Venkatesalu (Trent) for redefining modern retail. Together, they reflect the spectrum of India’s economic power from engineering to innovation. Beyond numbers, the evaluation also incorporated qualitative factors: how CEOs have acted as change agents, steering their organisations onto stronger trajectories. In some cases, the recognition went not to where a firm stands today, but to how decisively its leader has guided it towards improvement and transformation. As Jain puts it: “The role of a CEO is an extremely demanding one and a very critical one. It is very difficult to do justice to the definition of a good CEO in a short while. But, in my opinion, the most important role of a CEO is to deepen and to work on the comparative advantages of the enterprise that he or she leads. My second criteria would be someone who deals with change proactively and, finally, good capital allocation.” These are disruptive times for businesses where the global environment can shift overnight with a single policy change or even a tweet. Leaders today have to navigate an unpredictable landscape filled with volatility, from tariff tensions abroad to tax reforms like GST at home. “While there is a lot of emphasis on the return on capital employed [RoCE], there are qualitative factors on how a CEO has acted as the change agent and, maybe, taken a company to a better trajectory. So, at times we have rewarded the incremental change rather than just where the company is today,” says Mehra. While several leaders have altered their growth trajectory for good, one such business leader is Sunil Vachani, who has undoubtedly emerged as the poster boy of manufacturing, by rightly aligning with the production-linked incentive scheme that the government has rolled out to give a leg-up to manufacturing in the country. The company has been part of five PLI schemes and in each one of the schemes, it has met every commitment: investment, turnover, employment, and value addition. “We’ve been the first company off the block in each category, whether mobile phones or IT hardware,” says Vachani. But Vachani is not happy with status quo, he wants to move up the value chain. “What we’re trying to do now is to evolve from a prescriptive manufacturer to an own design manufacturer. So, in categories such as refrigerators, washing machines and lighting, we’re designing our own products,” he explains. On the other hand, Larsen & Toubro—India’s largest engineering and technology conglomerate—is looking further ahead after outpacing its own milestones by achieving the 2026 five-year target a year in advance. Chairman and MD S.N. Subrahmanyan has reorganised the structure of the group into clearly defined segments, making it a more tech-driven, agile and future-oriented organisation. “I have the strength of focussing deeply on the businesses I handle,” he tells Fortune India. When set in motion in 2021, Lakshya 2026 had set bold goals: top line of ₹2.7 lakh crore, an order book of ₹3.4 lakh crore, and double-digit margins. L&T surpassed nearly all of them ahead of schedule, reporting revenues of ₹2.55 lakh crore in FY25, with a three-year CAGR of 17.8%, and profit growth of 20.2% annually. Today, its order book exceeds ₹6.5 lakh crore, nearly double the original target. From Dixon’s design-led ambitions to L&T’s long-range strategic discipline, both stories capture the essence of India Inc.’s next growth phase: innovation-driven, and ambitious. The sectoral awards form the core of the recognition but is diverse in its representation of industries that drive the economy. Each winner represents not just business success, but the transformational underpinning of the sector that it represents. In automobiles, the awards cherish heritage and reinvention: from Sudarshan Venu’s agile leadership at TVS Motor to Anish Shah and Rajesh Jejurikar’s dynamic stewardship of Mahindra & Mahindra. In banking and finance, leaders such as Debadatta Chand (Bank of Baroda) and Rajeev Jain (Bajaj Finance) exemplify trust and digital agility in a sector that anchors India’s economic momentum and is the most-preferred proxy of investors to play the India story. Meanwhile, stalwarts such as Madhukar Parekh (Pidilite Industries) and Satish Pai (Hindalco) continue to define India’s industrial and manufacturing excellence. Beyond financial performance, the awards celebrate a deeper dimension of leadership—one that marries innovation with purpose. Visionaries such as Deepinder Goyal represent India’s digital-first consumer revolution, C. Vijayakumar (HCL Technologies) showcases global-scale transformation in IT, and Dr Prathap C. Reddy (Apollo Hospitals) redefines access to quality healthcare. Leaders such as Sanjiv Puri (ITC) and Varun Jaipuria (Varun Beverages) illustrate how scale can shape consumer behaviour, while C.K. Venkataraman (Titan) and Puneet Chhatwal (IHCL) demonstrate why they are at the forefront of India’s consumption boom and growing aspirations. At the pinnacle of recognition stands Mukesh Ambani, named Best of the Best for his visionary stewardship of Reliance Industries, and K.V. Kamath, whose Lifetime Achievement Award honours a career dedicated to building institutions grounded in integrity and long-term value creation. The diversity of winners tells the convergence of the India growth story: homogenous in intent but heterogenous in outcomes. The numbers show what heterogeneity is all about. Based on the data for the Top 3 shortlisted companies, in terms of revenue CAGR, consumer technology has emerged as the undisputed growth engine, clocking an extraordinary 61.5% CAGR. Hospitality (41.2%), medium-income-enterprises (40.4%), and consumer durables (36.2%) follow, reflecting a post-pandemic surge in consumption, and lifestyle spending on the back of a retail credit boom. Even emerging income companies (34.6%) have shown that scale is no longer a prerequisite for momentum. But the story isn’t just about top-line acceleration. Profitability and capital efficiency have strengthened in tandem. RoCE has expanded sharply in asset-heavy sectors—mining and metals saw a 1,009 basis-point jump aided by a strong commodity cycle, commercial vehicles improved 976 bps, and passenger vehicles gained 572 bps. Even legacy sectors such as oil and gas (365 bps) and retail & consumer (358 bps) have improved returns, indicating that operational discipline and financial prudence are taking centre stage. Interestingly, some of the sectors, though lower in absolute RoCE, such as consumer tech (317 bps) and hospitality (347 bps) show signs of maturing business models, where early-stage growth is now translating into sustained profitability. Momentum is also shifting in unexpected quarters. The commercial vehicles category within auto posted a staggering 162% surge in last-to-previous growth in net profit, followed by insurance (94%), emerging-income firms (75%), and capital goods (59%), indicative of a broad-based revival. These trends suggest green shoots of an investment-led expansion cycle. Of course, not every sector has shared equally in the upswing. Oil & gas (-3.7%) and cement (-5%) have felt the weight of cyclical slowdowns and price pressures, while established sectors such as large-cap IT (7.4% CAGR) and FMCG (9%) have moderated after years of strong momentum. Yet, even in these cases, balance sheets remain resilient and capital efficiency relatively high, an indication that India Inc. has matured enough to withstand cyclical headwinds to ride an uptick in the economy. Not surprisingly Manian of Federal Bank believes that the revised GST structure will give a fillip to demand. “If basic goods demand improves, banks’ credit lending opportunities also improve. So, further lower income tax will improve surplus in the hands of consumers. The second half of the year will be strong for the economy,” Manian tells Fortune India. Though there have been concerns about the fallout of the tariff war on the Indian economy, GDP growth estimates have been positive. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has raised its forecast for FY26 to 6.8%, with the International Monetary Fund bumping up its projection for 2025 to 6.6%. Jain believes India is in a far better position compared to other developed and emerging markets. “I think our growth outlook is robust; we should remain the world’s fastest growing large economy for many, many years to come and even our external side has never been in better shape,” says Jain. State Bank of India, the country’s largest public sector bank that has a pulse on the economy, believes growth will accelerate in the new segments. The bank has identified eight new emerging sectors, including semiconductors, green steel, and green hydrogen. “Some sectors have some maturity of funding, while others are quite new in terms of financing aspects,” mentions SBI chairman C.S. Setty. For now, all eyes will be on how the capex cycle moves as, according to the RBI, banks and financial institutions sanctioned 907 projects worth `3.68 lakh crore in FY25. Setty is confident that growth will pick up. “India has lived through the uncertainties over the past five years. It doesn’t mean to say that the global uncertainty is not impacting, as we are not completely decoupled, but I believe India has weathered much better than many other countries globally,” says Setty. With a record cash pile and a vibrant equity market in play, India Inc. couldn’t have asked for a better alignment of variables to rev up its growth engines. The next leap will, however, depend not just on capital or confidence but on the quality of decisions its leaders make. Because, as Drucker reminded the world decades ago, the true test of an executive is not activity, but effectiveness. Fortune India is now on WhatsApp! 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The Airbenders: For India’s Best CEOs, Ambition Drives Execution

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