“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.”
-Jack Welch
Mr. Kaviraj Singh the Secretary-General for Indian National Bar Association in an endeavor to bestow respect and admiration for the challenging and yeoman services rendered by GCs to corporate India, INBA successfully organized INBA 2018 General Counsels Recognition which was an awards ceremony as well as a conference. It strived to recognize the immense professional contributions of general counsels across verticals and functions, and who through their sheer hard work and perseverance have surmounted various obstacles to efficiently drive their team towards greater success in this complex legal world. The esteemed Awards were introduced to acknowledge and reward the exceptional work and the results gained by the General Counsels of the corporate domain, in the face of an ever-increasing competitive market.
The theme of this year’s conference is “Tackling The Future…Today“. The conference aimed to provide a meeting place for related domain professionals to gather under one roof for in-depth brainstorming on a variety of topics and provide an avenue for networking amongst industry peers and colleagues. Few broad topics, which were non-exhaustive in nature, were set out at the outset of the conference.
The event began with registrations and a welcome address by Mr. Kaviraj Singh.
- The First panel which shouldered the responsibility of discussing “Laws and Legal Issues in the Digital Age”, was moderated by the Director of Legal, Raymond Limited, Zameer Nathani.*
- The Second panel indulged in discussion on“GCs Role in Fraud Risk Management and Compliance” Mr. Amber Gupta as Moderator Head Legal & Compliance, Birla Sunlife Insurance
- The Third panel which was moderated by the Co-Founding Partner of ANM Global, Mr. Nidhish Mehrotra, centered their discussion on “Intellectual Property – Protection and Implementation Challenges”.
- The Fourth panel moderated by the Head Counsel of Corporate Legal, Essar Power, Mr. Siddhartha Patnaik, discussed “Competition Law in a Modern Disruptive World”
The conference, before breaking for the much-awaited awards ceremony, was made even more informative with an interesting Presentation on Mergers & Acquisitions/Private Equity. The Awards were honored for different categories. These awards serve as a token of our appreciation and gratitude to their continued dedication. The list of awardees is stated below:
| S. No. | Categories | Name of the Awardees | Designation | Name of the Company |
| 1. | GC- Insurance | Mr. SachinKalra | VP – Head Legal | Bharti AXA Life Insurance Limited |
| 2. | GC- Insurance | Mr. Amber Gupta | Head Legal & Compliance | Birla Sunlife Insurance Limited |
| 3. | GC- Re-Insurance | Ms. SonaliChawda | Compliance Officer | Lloyds India |
| 4. | GC- Telecom | Ms. Dipti Kotak | General Counsel | Reliance JioInfocomm |
| 5. | GC- Consulting | Mr. Suresh Kumar | General Counsel, Partner | Deloitte India |
| 6. | GC- Realty | Mr. Tushar Chawla | General Counsel & Ethics Officer | JLL India Private Limited |
| 7. | GC- Realty | Mr. Surender Varma | Co. Secretary & Chief Legal Officer | Godrej Properties Limited |
| 8. | GC- Infrastructure | Mr. Hemant Kumar | Group General Counsel | Larsen & Toubro Limited |
| 9. | GC – Logistics | Mr. Nirmal Kumar Pandey | EVP & General Counsel | Gati Limited |
| 10. | GC-Services | Mr. Manish Kumar | General Counsel & VP Corporate Affairs | Zoomcar |
| 11. | GC – Media – Print & Electronic | Mr. Amit Rai | Director, Legal | Bennett, Coleman & Co. Limited
|
| 12. | GC – Media – Print & Electronic | Mr. Manish Wadkar | Associate VP & Head, Legal | Times Network |
| 13. | GC- Manufacturing | Mr. VivekRaizada | AVP Legal & Company Secretary | Godrej Agrovet Limited |
| 14. | GC- Manufacturing | Mr. Naveen Raju | GC & EVP, Group Legal Services | Mahindra & Mahindra Limited |
| 15. | GC-Pharma & Healthcare | Mr. Rakesh Chandra Sinha | Head – Legal | Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Limited |
| 16. | GC- Entertainment | Ms.Priyanka Chaudhari | Vice President, Group Legal | Balaji Telefilms Limited |
| 17. | GC- Hospitality | Mr. Rajendra Misra | EVP & General Counsel | Indian Hotels Company Limited |
| 18. | GC- Retail | Mr. Pankaj Patel | Head – Legal (Corporate Planning) | Future Group |
| 19. | GC- Retail | Mr. Vikram Raj | Head – Legal | D- Mart |
| 20. | GC-BFSI | Mr. Bhargesh Ojha | Sr. VP Legal | Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited |
| 21. | GC-BFSI | Mr. Pramod Rao | General Counsel | Citi India |
| 22. | GC- IT | Mr. Satish Kumar | Global Head – Legal & Chief Data Privacy Officer | Ramco Systems |
| 23. | GC- IT | Mr. Madhav Anchan | Deputy General Counsel | TCS Limited |
| 24. | GC- Ecommerce | Mr. Rakesh Bakshi | Ind. Legal Director, AGC | Amazon.com, Inc |
| 25. | GC- Ecommerce | Ms. Smriti Subramanian | General Counsel & VP | Snapdeal |
| 26. | GC – Best Legal Team | Mr. Zameer Nathani | Director, Legal | Raymond Limited |
| 27. | Woman GC of the Year | Ms. DebolinaPartap | General Counsel | Wockhardt Limited |
| 28. | GC of the Year – Gentlemen | Mr. Sanjay Mishra | Head – Legal | Essel Group |
| 29. | GC of the Year – Gentlemen | Mr. Pulin Kumar | Gr. Sr. Legal & Compliance Director | Adidas India |
| 30. | GC of the Year – Gentlemen | Mr. KanaiyaThakker | Joint President & Head Legal | Ambuja Cement |
It is with great pleasure that INBA congratulates all the Award Recipients for their dedication towards the community. The event came to a successful conclusion with a reception which accorded the professionals with a golden opportunity to network. We keep our arms open to embrace more GC’s in the next year event and try and approach the maximum number.
