This evening, the spotlight will shine bright on exceptional women leaders who have achieved historic firsts, shattered stereotypes, questioned the status quo and, in turn, played an instrumental role in inspiring a whole generation to tide over societal challenges. The occasion: The third edition of the Express Awards for Women Entrepreneurs (or ExpressAWE), instituted by Financial Express as a joint initiative with FICCI-FLO, at the St Regis in Mumbai today. The much-awaited awards evening promises to be a rare gathering of some of the finest minds and most successful women entrepreneurs in India who are trendsetters, innovators and trailblazers.
What makes these awards distinctive is that the winners have been selected by an independent jury comprising industry icons. Chaired by Deepak Parekh, former chairman of Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC), the jury members are Zia Mody, co-founder and managing partner, AZB & Partners; Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, executive chairperson, Biocon and Biocon Biologics; Meher Pudumjee, chairperson, Thermax; Preetha Reddy, vice-chairperson, Apollo Hospitals; and Sachin Bansal, co-founder of Flipkart and now Navi Technologies.
They spent long hours to evaluate and deliberate upon the merits of every nomination and finally chose a set of winners who have all played a big role as scriptwriters of the India success story.
This year, the winners include Swati Piramal for lifetime achievement, Ananya Birla as the newsmaker, Roshni Nadar Malhotra as the legacy entrepreneur, along with several other stellar winners, each of whom carved out a niche in select domains with not just an impressive footprint but also with their pathbreaking endeavours.Deepika Padukone, Renuka Ramnath, Zoya Akhtar, Reema Kagti, Meher Pudumjee, Laila Tyabji, Jyotsna Suri, Indu Shahani, Meena Ganesh, Ghazal Alagh, and Vineeta Singh were the other winners in separate categories. Avarna Jain has been chosen as a promising FICCI-FLO entrepreneur.
Staying true to the core purpose of spurring, recognising and honouring women entrepreneurship, the event would also offer insightful talks, thought sharing, brainstorming and idea swapping with rich takeaways, in the process triggering solution-based thinking on some of the challenges that continue to confront women entrepreneurs.Most who traverse the entrepreneurial journey tend to emphasise the importance of both a brilliant mind and a caring heart — good enough reasons why the evening will unfold with an address by guest-of-honour Gaur Gopal Das, monk, lifestyle coach, author and a motivational speaker. That will be followed by acclaimed entrepreneur and film producer Ronnie Screwvala in conversation with Zia Mody and Anant Goenka, executive director, The Indian Express Group.
Some of the past winners of ExpressAWE include Anita Dongre, Ameera Shah, Lakshmi Venu, Soumya Rajan, and Falguni Nayar. Past speakers included Sheryl Sandberg, former Meta COO, and Indra Nooyi, former chairperson of PepsiCo.This year, the awards are to be given across 14 categories and these include fashion and lifestyle, social impact (mental health), education and skill development, health and wellness, sustainability, media and entertainment, social impact (crafts), travel and hospitality, finance and venture capital, e-commerce, newsmaker of the year, legacy entrepreneur and the lifetime achievement award, apart from the promising FICCI-FLO entrepreneur award.
In addition to the Express awards, there would be two IndusWe awards that would be given away to Ankur Dahiya, the Founder & CEO of Rozana Rural, and to Rhea Thahryamal, the Director at Sanskar School.
