MUMBAI: Leading one of India's biggest broadcast company from the front - Star India CEO Uday Shankar - has time and again challenged the status quo and taken multiple risks, which have in turn reaped multiple rewards.
One of the most powerful man in the Indian media and entertainment industry, Shankar has been named as the Best CEO of a Multi-National Company (MNC) at the Forbes India Leadership Awards (FILA) 2015, which were held at the Grand Hyatt, Mumbai.
The award marks a break from convention at FILA, with Shankar becoming the first MNC head of a media and entertainment company to receive the honour.
Shankar was selected from amongst a shortlist of nominees that included leaders from top-notch companies like Hindustan Unilever, Samsung, ABB India and Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.
The jury for the Forbes India Leadership Award 2015 comprised the likes Marico India chairman Harish Mariwala, HSBC India chairman Naina Lal Kidwai, McKinsey India managing director Noshir Kaka and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co India country head Sanjay Nayar.
Accepting the award, Shankar said, “I feel enormously humbled to be receiving this honour on behalf of Star India. We are a multinational company albeit with an Indian heart. Our endeavour has been to harness the transformational power of media to foster social change and thereby inspire a billion imaginations.’”
“I would not be here receiving this award, if I was not a journalist - that introduced me to the value of being socially relevant and to see the nuances that the untrained eye could easily miss. It also showed me that the value in life comes from doing big things - the headlines. And finally, it taught me to do the right thing, not be intimidated by competition because everybody makes as many mistakes,” he added.
From shaping the content and marketing strategy for Star India’s multiple channels across genres, charting out the company’s digital strategy with Hotstar, heading the Indian Broadcasting Federation (IBF) - the apex organisation representing television broadcasters, to being a part of power-packed policy meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and 21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch, Shankar juggles multiple responsibilities with élan. In fact, he was the only Indian CEO to be present at PM Modi’s roundtable meeting on media, technology and communications in the US recently alongside News Corp and 21st Century Fox executive chairman Rupert Murdoch and a host of other CEOs from various American organisations.
Shankar took on as CEO of Star India in 2006 and will be completing a decade in the role next year.
