Clearly identify the categories

Many of the themes for the categories were drawn from ideas that are core to Forbes India’s editorial agenda. These are spaces that the magazine’s writers and editors are on top of.

Define objective and qualitative criteria for each category

This was done with the help of Grant Thornton, the global advisory firm and our knowledge partners. We vetted the criteria with acknowledged experts in relevant areas: Professor MS Sriram of IIM-A and Ashoka fellow Sanjay Bapat for the social entrepreneurship category. For framing the financial framework we relied on Sanjoy Bhattacharyya, a Forbes India columnist and a senior founding member of CRISIL and ICRA.

Build a long-list of nominations

The entire Forbes India editorial team was involved in building the initial long-list. Our topic editors led the nomination process in each category and took responsibility for due diligence. Extensive research was done on each nomination. At the same time, Grant Thornton team also generated a separate list of nominations.

Arrive at a short-list in a two-step process

The Forbes India Senior Editors finally picked about ten nominees based on a set of profiles and data. These were then shared with Grant Thornton for another round of vetting, before we picked the top five nominations based on an internal debate.

Jury meeting

The final stage of selection was through a jury meeting chaired by Mr KV Kamath, chairman of ICICI Bank and co-chairman of Infosys. They selected one winner in each of the ten categories.

Awards Ceremony

The winners will be felicitated at a grand ceremony to be held on 21^st October in Mumbai.