In its quest to identify and honour successful entrepreneurs from the State, who would be at the top of the league table in 2030, the Confederation of Indian Industry – Tamil Nadu State Council (CII-TNSC) in association with The Hindu Business Line has instituted ‘The CII Tamil Nadu Emerging Entrepreneurs Award.'
CII-TNSC has shortlisted 24 entrepreneurs as finalists, of which nine winners will be announced at the first edition of the awards function on April 18. Deputy Chief Minister M.K. Stalin will preside.
The award aims to provide a unique platform to these entrepreneurs to network, learn and exchange ideas with others.
In all, CII-TNSC received about 170 entries from the State. After initial screening, the Awards Committee, McKinsey and the Jury Committee arrived at the top 24 applicants based on growth and performance, with minimum cut-offs at Rs.30 crore from turnover in fiscal 2009, and 30 per cent compounded annual growth rate.
Later, the Jury viewed vision, execution excellence; institutional building; personal leadership; innovative business model; impact on society and sustainability and scalability to decide final awardees.
Talking to the reporters on Monday, Chairman of the Awards Committee Gopal Srinivasan said; “All the 170 applicants are actually winners and to select 24 finalists and nine winners among them is onerous. This is an attempt to recognise the ‘best of the best' of emerging entrepreneurs who will scale up to be national and global players in the next two decades. We must nurture and cherish them and that's why we are having these awards.”
According to him, the awardees represented various fields including health care, consumer goods, telecommunications, food, hotels, construction, energy, and software. A book on the 24 finalists in Tamil and English will be released on Sunday.
“We still have an unfinished agenda. This time around, women entrepreneurs were not able to make it to the list. Out of the 24 finalists, seven are from Chennai. TNSC has always been a pioneer in recognising emerging entrepreneurs. Two years ago we released a booklet on ‘101 successful entrepreneurs of Tamil Nadu.' In the coming years, these entrepreneurs are going to get us Sampurna Azadi,” he said.
CII-TNSC past chairman, C.K. Ranganathan said that these entrepreneurs have been in the field for more than five years and had the capability to provide employment to over 500-1,000 people in the coming years. The award has been instituted to recognise their hard work and to motivate them further.
