BIZTECH2.com AWARDS INDIA'S LEADING CIOS

Network18’s business technology portal Biztech2.com recognized and awarded India’s leading CIOs as CIO Masters and Grandmasters 2012 at a high-profile CXO event in Mumbai recently. The award function was the culmination of the powerful CIO Masters 2012 recognition and engagement programme that aimed at not only recognising and acknowledging the growth and success stories of many masters of business technology, but engaged with them over months so they could share their experience-driven business technology insights with other Indian organisations and CXOs, for the greater good of India Inc.

The star studded event was kicked off with an incisive keynote address by Manish Bahl, Director & Country Manager—India with Forrester Research, who threw light on Forrester’s new Empowered Business Technology CIO paradigm, followed by a panel discussion that included Rajesh Uppal, Executive Officer (IT) and CIO, Maruti Suzuki; Arun Gupta, Group CTO, Shoppers Stop and Umesh Jain, President & CIO, YES Bank, representing the manufacturing, services and BFSI sector respectively. The panel discussion focused on Business-Technology alignment, CIO-driven innovation, changes in the CIO role and CIO growth issues.

Amongst those who stole the limelight and walked away with accolades for remarkable contributions to their organisations in the sphere of Business Technology were Vijay Sethi, VP-IS & CIO, Hero Motocorp and Umesh Jain, President & CIO, YES Bank, who jointly won the CIO Grandmasters 2012 award for COLLABORATION; Sandeep Phanasgaonkar, President & CTO Reliance Capital was named CIO Grandmaster 2012 for SECURITY; Alpna Doshi, Reliance ADAG Group CIO was awarded CIO Grandmaster 2012 for VIRTUALISATION; V. Subramaniam, Director-IT & CIO (India & Gulf Area), Otis India, won the award for DATACENTRES. The event ended with a bang with the CIO of the Year 2012 award that was shared by Rajesh Uppal, Executive Officer (IT) & CIO, Maruti Suzuki and Arun Gupta, Group CTO, Shoppers Stop—Biztech2.com honoured them for providing stellar technology leadership and now growing beyond the CIO role into managing various lines of business and being an inspiration to other CIOs.

Forrester Research was Knowledge Partner for the event, while CIO Masters Technology Partners included Avaya, RSA and Brocade. A full list of Biztech2.com CIO Masters is available at www.biztech2.com/ciomasters
Ivor Soans, Managing Editor-Enterprise Technology, Network18 said, “The unique aspect of CIO Masters 2012 was that it was CIO-driven. I’m grateful to our CIO Masters for enthusiastically sharing their business technology wisdom and insights during the course of this programme by writing blogs, opening up their businesses to powerful Biztech2.com video case studies, speaking to other CIOs through our video interviews, moderating CIO-driven round tables and more. With technology at the heart of business today, CIOs are no longer business enablers, but business leaders and CIO Masters underlined this fact.”

Lakshmi Narasimhan, CEO, Web18 further added, “CIO masters is a showcase that features technology leaders who have led and shaped technology and business alignment in some of India’s most prominent organisations. But rather than just recognise these giants, CIO Masters features insights from their rich technology leadership experience, knowledge distilled from years of facing business challenges successfully, and roadmaps for the future.”