Ernst & Young's annual business award for entrepreneurs -- the Entrepreneur Of The Year Award -- will have 18 finalists this year.
A six-member jury headed by former Securities and Exchange Board of India chairman M Damodaran will declare the winner of the award for 2009 on February 16 in Mumbai,E&Y said.
The jury had screened 310 nominations to choose the 18 finalists, which include leading industrialists such as Anand Mahindra of Mahindra Group, D B Gupta of Lupin Ltd and Amit D Patel of Sintex Industries Ltd.
The winners will be announced in several categories. The winner of the award will represent India at the E&Y World Entrepreneur Of The Year Award in Monte Carlo, Monaco, in May 2010. Recipients of the award become lifetime members of the World Entrepreneur Of The Year Hall of Fame.
The finalists include Amit Mittal of A2Z Maintenance & Engineering Services Pvt Ltd, Lt Col Hardeep Singh Bedi of Tulip Telecom Group, Harsh C Mariwala of Marico Ltd, M Venugopalan of The Federal Bank Ltd, N Vaghul of ICICI Bank Ltd, O P Bhatt of State Bank of India, Pankaj R Patel of Zydus Cadila Healthcare Ltd, R C Juneja of Mankind Pharma Ltd, Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi of Karuturi Global Ltd, Sanjeev Narula of Lilliput Kidswear Ltd, Shashi Kiran Shetty of Allcargo Global Logistics Ltd, Tapaas Chakravarti of DQ Entertainment (International) Pvt Ltd, V R S Natarajan of BEML Ltd, Vandanaa Luthra of VLCC Health Care Ltd and Vikram Akula of SKS Microfinance Ltd.
The jury members are Ficci director-general Amit Mitra, HSBC India group manager and country head Naina Lal Kidwai, Accel Partners managing partner Neeraj Bharadwaj, The Oberoi Group chairman and chief executive officer PRS Oberoi and Ashok Leyland managing director R Seshasayee.
