nykaa: Nykaa CEO Falguni Nayar wins EY Entrepreneur of the Year award

Nayar, a former investment banker, will now represent India at the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year Award (WEOY) to be held on June 9 this year.

Last year’s winner Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson, Biocon, had won the WEOY.

On the leaderboard were a mix of incumbents and startups who had scaled up their companies during the last couple of years under difficult circumstances.

A M Naik, group chairman of Larsen & Toubro (L&T), was felicitated with the Lifetime Achievement Award while Vidit Aatrey, Co-founder & CEO and Sanjeev Barnwal, Co-founder & CTO, Fashnear Technology (Meesho) won the award in the startup category.

Rajiv Memani, Chairman and CEO, EY India said, “The backdrop of the awards this year is one of great resilience of India’s entrepreneurial ingenuity and the country’s growth prospects. Our EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 winners should be celebrated for their success against all odds, especially in today’s business environment which is more dynamic than ever.”

In one of the most keenly contested categories—business transformation—Abhay Soi, Chairman and Managing Director of Max Healthcare was elected the winner.

Another high profile winner was Sunil Vachani, founder and executive Chairman, Dixon Technologies who came up tops in the manufacturing category.

Salil Barua, co-founder and CEO of Delivery won the award in the services category.

And in the consumer products and retail category, Shiv Kishan Agarwal and Manohar Lal Agarwal of Haldiram were declared as winners.

Two of the hottest companies to find a mention on the winners list were Laurus Labs and Razorpay.

Dr. Satyanarayana Chava, Founder and CEO of Laurus Labs won the award in life sciences and healthcare category and Harshil Mathur, co-founder and CEO and Shashank Kumar, co-founder and CTO of Razorpay came up trumps in the financial services category.

A distinguished nine-member Jury Panel, led by
K V Kamath
, selected the 9 winners from 21 finalists.

In his address, the Chief Guest, Shri Bhupender Yadav, Honourable Minister of Labour & Employment and Environment, Forest & Climate Change said, “India is marching towards an inclusive and sustainable economy which firmly believes in enabling and enhancing the efficiency and efficacy of our entrepreneurs. It is great to see that this year, EOY Awards has 21 Finalists with combined revenues of INR 1.87 trillion, who collectively employ more than 2,60,000 people; this is a testimony of the nation’s entrepreneurial talent.”

In other categories, Girish Mathrubootham, co-founder and CEO of Freshworks won technology, media and telecom category award while Vivek Vikram Singh, managing director and group CEO of Sona Comstar was selected by the jury as winner of the entrepreneurial CEO category.

Farokh Balsara, partner and EOY India program leader said that this year’s winners have shown incredible resilience to unlock new opportunities during uncertain times. “Their entrepreneurial mindset combined with agility and speed has helped them grow their businesses to exponential scale and build enabling processes, technologies, systems and structures,” he said.