1. Vivek Paul, Wipro Technologies

Not surprisingly, Vivek Paul, Chairman and Vice President of Wipro Technologies, comes in at No. 1.  Vivek Paul is arguably the most well known BITSian name and face around. In his role as CEO of Wipro's global information technology, product engineering, and business process services segment he is responsible for a segment that has a revenue run rate of $800m, with 20,000 employees and offices in 24 locations around the world and contributes no less than 90% of Wipro's overall profits, and a significant portion of its $7 billion valuation. Its amazing that he has created Wipro into a global powerhouse in only four years at its helm. He initially built a strong position as a low-cost outsourcing firm that could integrate closely with client teams. One of Paul’s first moves was to set up his headquarters in Santa Clara , California to be closer to his customers. He trained 7,000 employees in Six Sigma, moved the headquarters to Santa Clara , and has achieved 45% annual revenue growth and 50% annual earnings growth. His prior business experiences include stints at Bain & Co., PepsiCo Inc and, in his last job, he spent over 10 years at General Electric.  He started GE’s initiative to source software from India and was a member of the very first evaluation team to visit India . In the early ‘90s he pioneered the joint venture between GE Medical Systems and Wipro and was soon appointed President and CEO of this joint venture. He took the venture from being a fledgling start-up to becoming a leader in the domestic Indian market. In 1996 he returned to the US to run GE's Global CT Scanner business, a business unit with over $700M in revenues.  The business bestseller book Six Sigma mentioned his pioneering work with the application of Six Sigma techniques in high tech product design.   He graduated with a BE in EEE from BITS, Pilani, after which he went on to complete his MBA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst .  He was one of 3 Indians to be named among Asia ’s 25 Movers & Shakers by AsiaWeek in March 2001. He is a member of the Board of the California Chamber of Commerce, and Vice Chairman of its Technology Committee. He is also a member of the BITS Senate, on the advisory board of Stanford University 's Radiology Department and a charter member of The Silicon Valley Indus Entrepreneurs Organization.  He is also heavily involved in BITSAA alumni activities.

2. Kuldip K Kaura, Hindustan Zinc

KK Kaura ran ABB India as Managing Director till till 2001.  ABB India had sales of over Rs. 800 crores when KK Kaura decided to leave to pursue other opportunities. When the Sterlite Group took a 26% stake in Hindustan Zinc in 2002, KK Kaura, who was then President of Sterlite’s copper business, was appointed as Managing Director. Hindustan Zinc is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of Zinc.  KK Kaura holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering (1968) from Pilani. At a BITSAA Delhi event, he was presented with a memento on behalf of the association by Rear Admiral Arun Saxena in December 2000.

3. Sunil Duggal, Dabur Group

Sunil Duggal was appointed CEO of Dabur India Limited in June 2002 after just 5 years with Dabur. Dabur is one of India ’s oldest and best known names with famous brands such as Chyavanprash (who can forget that !) and Vatika.  Sunil joined Dabur in 1995 as General Manager (Sales & Marketing), of the Family Products Division. This Division spearheaded the spectacular growth recorded by Dabur during this period. Vatika was also launched during this period and is now the Company's second biggest brand. His meteoric rise in the organization continued when he became Vice-President and SBU-Head of the Family Products and subsequently, Division Director Sales and Marketing of Dabur India Limited.  Sunil has spent all his working life in the FMCG sector. He had started out his career with Wimco Limited in 1981 as a Management Trainee after having completed his education in EEE at BITS and Business Management at Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta . Between 1981 and 1995, he worked in many different roles at Wimco, Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd for a short period, and Pepsi Foods as GM, Sales Operation.

4. Gulu Mirchandani, Mirc Electronics (Onida)

Gulu Mirchandani is the Chairman & Managing Director of MIRC Electronics Ltd. – manufacturers of the third largest brand of color televisions in India - ‘ONIDA’. We all remember the upstart company – Onida, that hit the market with its outstanding and controversial advertising campaigns in the 80s – Neighbors Envy, Owners Pride – and the face of the devil that became the face of the company and made Onida one of India ’s biggest consumer product successes. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of ‘KEC International Ltd.’, ‘Blow Plast Ltd.’ and ‘Shoppers’ Stop Ltd.’. In 1999 under his leadership, MIRC Electronics Ltd. also won the ‘Award for Excellence in Electronics’ conferred by the Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India.   He holds a BE in Mechanical Engineering degree from BITS.  He was the President of ‘Consumer Electronics and TV Manufacturers Association’ (CETMA) between 1992-94 and is a much sought-after industry spokesperson. He is currently the Chairman of the Bombay Chapter of the World Presidents’ Organisation (WPO), an International organization of more than 3000 CEOs with operations in more than 60 countries.

5. Baba Kalyani, Kalyani Group (Bharat Forge)

Baba Kalyani is the Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Forge, India, the largest auto components company in India . The Kalyani Group also has interests in specialty steels, infrastructure and IT enabled services. Bharat Forge is the largest forge in the world and the flagship company of the Kalyani Group.  The Kalyani group has successful joint ventures with global companies such as Robert Bosch, ArvinMeritor and Sharp. It is one of the largest Indian exporters of engineered products. Infrastructure development in India and IT enabled services has been identified as new growth areas for the company.  Baba graduated with a BE in Mechanical Engineering from BITS and an MS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  He is a National Council member of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and is involved in various philanthropic activities and projects including promotion of primary education for underprivileged children through the India Education Initiative and Pratham Pune Education Foundation. He is also Chairman of the Board of Governors, Indian Institute of Management , Indore .

6. Rakesh Kalra, Eicher Motors

Rakesh Kalra is the Managing Director of Eicher Motors Ltd. He joined Eicher Tractors Ltd. in 1980  in the Materials Management function and moved to Eicher Motors Ltd. at Indore in 1985 going on to take over as Managing Director of the company in 1999.  He started his career with Bharat Electronics Ltd, Bangalore , a leading manufacturer of radar equipment for the armed forces in India .   He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from BITS, Pilani and is an active member of the CII and is presently Chairman - Malwa Zonal Council. He is also a member of the CII - M.P. Council and CII-Western Regional Council. Eicher Motors manufactures and markets commercial vehicles and has a network of more than 500 contact points throughout India for sales, service and spare parts, backed by around 4500 private mechanics trained by the company. EML was incorporated in 1982 in technical and financial collaboration with Mitsubishi of Japan for the manufacture of 6 ton gvw LCVs. Eicher Motors currently has 23% market share in the 6-9 ton segment. The Eicher group is an established name in the automobile sector. For instance, after a spate of accidents involving school buses in Delhi , the company promptly launched a variant of its Skyline bus, which specifically addressed the safety concern of children.

7. Rajesh Hukku, I-Flex Solutions

With fiscal 2003 revenue of $134 million and 2,370 employees, Rajesh Hukku is founder, Chairman and MD of India’s largest software (not IT) company, also the world’s largest financial software company.  Rajesh started out his career, not unlike so many of us, as a Trainee Programmer, he went on to be employed as a Software Developer and Designer with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) before he joined Citicorp Overseas Software Limited (COSL) as Project Manager in 1987. He left with a group to start I-Flex in 1988, The $1 million invested by Citicorp Venture Capital in the business is worth over $400 million today. Rajesh is an outstanding marketer. When an executive gave him a brush-off, telling him the bank's system was so complex that only God could figure it out, Hukku made a deft save. "Sir, we are Indians," he said. "We are very religious, and very close to God." He won the business. Rajesh holds a BE EEE from BITS Pilani (he graduated second in his class).  and has also completed Post Graduate Research (sponsored by Tata Consultancy Services) in Local Area Networks from College Park, Maryland, USA.  He is also heavily involved in BITSAA alumni activities.  He has received two honors for his success story - the prestigious Ernst & Young, Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Information Technology in 2002 and the ‘Dewang Mehta Award for Innovation in Information Technology' conferred by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology – the second time the award has been given, and the second time it has gone to a BITSian.

8. Harish Bhat, Tanishq

Tanishq is one of the top five retailers in India , with 60 showrooms in 47 cities. Only six of these are owned by the company. The rest are run by franchisees. It contributes 40 per cent to Titan's business and is expected to account for 55 per cent by 2007. The firm is run by Harish Bhat who was Chief Operating Officer till recently been named to the top post. He also successfully led the sales, marketing and retailing efforts over the past two years, in his capacity as Vice-President - Sales & Marketing, and helped turn around the company from its three years of successive losses.  Harish now has ambitious plans to grow the company’s revenues to Rs 800 crores in three years. Tanishq has tied up with a US retailing company  and is looking to aggressively grow overseas. After graduating from BITS Harish went on to complete his MBA at the Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad).  His diverse experiences with the Tata group began with the Tata Administrative Service (TAS) and, over a span of 16 years, his Leadership roles have included FMCG marketing, sales and distribution, and strategic planning.

9. Ramesh D Grover, CMS Computers

CMS Computers Ltd. was started 25 years ago as a computer maintenance company with two colleagues, and Ramesh has been key critical in the development and growth of the organization, which today boasts of having almost 2500 people worldwide. He graduated from BITS with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and while in college pursued electronics as his hobby. Our very own Michael Dell, he assembled radios for his peers to earn pocket money. Every weekend he would travel to Delhi to buy a radio kit and assemble it during the week – assembling, over a couple of years, no less than 200 radios!  After a brief stint with Larsen & Toubro, Ramesh joined IBM where, over the course of a decade, he rapidly evolving from his initial role of Trainee Engineer to National Technical Support Manager, picking up several service awards along the way. A couple of years subsequent to the introduction of FERA (Foreign Exchange Regulation Act), in 1976, IBM developed its exit strategy for India and this paved the way for the founding of CMS Computers.  Today, the core divisions of CMS encompass all segments of IT - from manufacturing, through software development to customized product development. CMS boasts of 70 engineers in R&D centers in Mumbai, Pune and Trivandrum , engaged in the design and development of innovative IT empowered products. Key R&D initiatives have included touch screen point-of-sale, time attendance, access control and traffic control systems. Ramesh is definitely well on his way of realizing his vision of creating an IT powerhouse.

10. BK Patodia, GTN Textiles

When Bill Clinton visited Hyderabad to learn more about the IT industry there, GTN Textiles ended up in the headlines. T-shirts made by GTN are sold under the top-end Cutter & Buck brand – the brand that Clinton wears (The shirts retail for $80-120).  Clinton took back two Cutter & Buck golf T-shirts presented to him by the Chief Minister. An Engineering Graduate from one of the reputed Engineering Institute BITS Pilani, Mr.Patodia is the head of the well known G.T.N.Group. Of Companies, the Group has four export oriented Cotton Spinning Units. He is also the Director of Kerla State Industrial Development Corporation Ltd, Trivandrum , Committee Member Of Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Counicl, and Indo American Chamber Of Commerce & Industry, Branch (Kerla). GTN Group has Joint Venture with ITOCHU Corporation, Japan . GTN also has tieups with other companies like AM Player, Yves Saint Laurent, Lerros and Louis Estere. GTN was established in 1966, and is now the national leader in fine-count cotton yarn exports. It has won the Textile Export Promotion Council Award for the best export effort in fine-count cotton yarn since 1984.

11. SN Zindal, STPI

 STPI, The Software Technology Parks of India is arguably at the heart of India ’s software and BPO revolution, especially in key cities like Bangalore and Chennai. It houses the important software development centers of India and has some of the best infrastructure facilities in the world. But, Director General of STPI has global ambitions. A graduate from BITS Pilani and a post graduate from IIT Kanpur, he is making every effort to make STPI a world class player by forging important business associations with international players, opening many more centers and by increasing the inflow of technology and finance.  Mr. Zindal is a senior member/fellow of many professional bodies like IEEE, IETE, and Broadcast Engineering Society. He previously worked in the capacity of Chairman and Managing Director ET&T corporation and is still associated with this company. As Director General, he is overall head of STPI having its presence at 21 centers in India and proposes to open more centers. He has about 29 years of experience and has headed major projects in government, private and public sectors. He is a senior member/fellow of many professional bodies like IEEE , USA , IETE, New Delhi , Broadcast Engineering Society, New Delhi . Earlier he was Chairman & Managing Director, ET&T Corporation Ltd., a Government of India enterprise, and is also presently holding additional charge for the same. SN Zindal says some companies, both Indian and foreign, have evinced interest to become STPI partner but the decision can be taken only after the government took the decision on corporatisation.

12. Anil Gupta, Microtek

Anil Gupta an Electronics Engineer from Pilani and the founder and director of Microtek, a company with 2,500 employees and 250 dealerships. Anil tried his hand at practically everything– From teaching, to manufacturing doorbells, to data processing, to computer education and to create a successful Rs. 400 crore computer peripheral business. A focused and a persistent mind lead him to move on from Televista where he was a service engineer to creating a company called Systems Technologies and Consultancies Services (STACS)  which dealt with hardware and software design. Following several years of setbacks, diversification to other domains and pressure from international players, Mr. Gupta soon struck gold. He carefully analyzed the situation and decided to capitalize from the information technology industry which was still picking up in India . Some quick trips abroad and soon Mr. Gupta was completely into the business of selling monitors. Microtek was soon launched and became a big player in the monitors market. Mr. Gupta’s perceptive analysis enabled him to keep Microtek in the game despite the entry of huge multinationals. It is surprising that Microtek continues to hold on in a highly-competitive market, where even domestic players like BPL, Samtel or global giants like Viewsonic have not tasted success. Today, the company continues to be the only player in monochromes with average sale of about 5,000 units per month. While the sale of color monitors has peaked and fallen from 450,000 units to less than 300,000 units, the huge channel network has ensured that Microtek continues to exist in the MC market. It is using the same channels to pump in other peripherals like keyboards, UPS’ and motherboards. But the future doesn’t look bright for smaller monitor players. Samsung, with an installed capacity of over 4 million units, in a country with a demand of less than 2 million units, can use the extra capacity to push out players.

12. JC Jain, Texplas Group

JC Jain has a career that is studded with awards and recognitions. A Master’s degree holder in Production Engineering from Pilani and Bachelor’s degree holder in Mechanical Engineering from Gwalior, Mr. Jain went on to establish Texplas (India Private Limited) in 1975. The company dealt with producing fiberglass based insulating materials for electrical equipments. At present, the company has graduated to become the Texplas group of industries that includes Texplas India (P) Ltd, Rishabh Velveleen Limited and Texplas International. He has previously worked in top management positions at Union Carbide India Limited and Hindustan Electro Graphite’s and Carbon Corporation. One of Mr. Jain’s most important contributions to the Indian Industry was to give the Total Quality (TQ) movement momentum and direction. He was responsible for several important developments in this area and has chaired many associations in this regard. Several companies have obtained his assistance in their quality initiative. For these efforts of Mr. Jain, he has received plenty of recognition both in India and abroad. He is one of the first approved from Registered Lead Auditors Accreditation Board (RAB), USA and an approved tutor by British Standards Institution, U.K. and RWTUV, Germany in India . He has been awarded the Udyog Ratn". "Udyog Patra" and "Samaj Ratn”. In addition Mr. Jain is a member of International Organization for Standardization Technical Committee and the Managing Director of TQM International.

14. Deep Kapuria, Hi-Tech Gears

As President of the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA) and as Chairman and Managing Director of High Tech Gears, Mr. Deep Kapuria is an aggressive individual who sets high standards for himself.  He has been persistent in his efforts of “upping” the auto industry in India by bringing in various collaborations and trade agreements. His efforts paid off when ACMA was conferred the ‘outstanding partner’ award 2002 by the Japan external trade organization (Jetro). He served as Vice-President of ACMA in the year 2001-2002 and, prior to this, was Chairman, ACMA (Northern Region) for four years.  Mr. Kapuria holds an Honors Degree in Engineering from BITS Pilani and a management degree from Harvard Business School . He also undertook courses in quality control and processes and is today a certified Lead Assessor. In 1993 he held the position of Chairman of the Delhi Chapter of the Quality Circle Forum of India. High Tech Gears as the name suggests is a player in the auto ancillaries industry and manufactures automotive gears and shafts mainly for Hero Honda Motors.

15. Vijay Rao, Epicenter Technologies

Mr. Rao is considered a leader in the telecommunications industry in India with three decades of work experience in India and the US . As Managing Director (GBCS) at AT&T/Lucent, he was responsible for creating the market for call centers and voice mail in South Asia . As Executive Director and CEO of Escotel, an Indian Multinational cellular service company, he spearheaded his company to capture 67% of the market share in India .  He has a Bachelors degree (B.E.) from one of India 's best engineering institutes, BITS Pilani. and an MBA from the University of Colorado . Vijay has written articles on the telecom industry for the Wall Street Journal. He has also been on extensive lecture tours across India and the US .

16. RK Arora, CDAC

The development of the supercomputer by India after being denied the supply of US-made Cray supercomputer had once and for all proved that the country would never give in to technological blackmail, the scientists said.  This was achieved under the watch of Eminent Executive Director for the Center for Advanced Computing (C-DAC), RK. Arora is an important contributor to an organization that has always attempted to be ‘three up’ over the rest in the race for being technologically sound in the process becoming a highly specialized corporation. C-DAC - India ’s pride that has developed next generation technologies like the PARAM supercomputer is where RK Arora spends most of his time at. The combined and persistent efforts of eminent scientists like RK Arora himself has lead to C-DAC making vital contributions in the domain of high performance computing thus giving India the distinction of being amongst the few countries in the world to have accomplished something so significant. C-DAC is now looking at developing A Grid Enabled Information Infrastructure for Next Generation High Performance Computing.  Shri RK Arora is an graduate from BITS Pilani. (Note: RK Arora stepped down from CDAC after a very successful completion of his 5-year term at the helm of the group, at time of going to press)

17. SK Garg, Eldeco Group

Mr. SK Garg, a Civil Engineer from BITS Pilani, taught engineering at his alma mater. That was when the entrepreneurial surge took over him and he went on to found Ekdeco construction Pvt. Ltd. in 1975 and Eldeco Housing & Industries Ltd thereafter. There was no stopping after that and Mr. Garg’s passion propelled him to build more and more ambitious projects. From mini cities, to group housing projects to commercial complexes, Mr. SK Garg has been there, done it all and done it to perfection. It was thus no wonder when the company won the Builders Excellence award and Award for excellence in construction. From a humble beginning of 18 thousand sq. ft, the construction experience of Eldeco Housing & Industries Ltd is an impressive 120 lakh sq. ft today. The company has already completed 45 projects in Lucknow , Kanpur , Agra and Ghaziabad with 18 more under-construction. The company went public in 1985 and is today listed on Mumbai, Delhi and Kanpur Stock exchanges.

18. Naresh Khattar, Avalon Resorts

Naresh Khattar is a civil engineer from Pilani and has made his niche in the highly competitive construction industry. Having been around in the field ever since 1978, he has the credit of successfully completing hallmark projects like the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium, Talkatora Swimming pool, Asiad Village, Hyatt Regency Hotel, Hilton Hotel, A. W.H.O. Som Vihar, Garden Estate and T.E.R.I. His prowess is visible not only in India but also many other countries including Germany , Argentina , UK and North America . Soon his untiring desire for ‘more’ overtook him and this time he set his sights on building resort hotels. Avalon Resorts, Mussorie the result of this latest venture has the 'Gold Crown' resort accreditation by RCI and is considered one of the most premium among holiday resorts in the country. Rita Khattar, an interior designer is perhaps Naresh’s most valuable resource. Where Naresh builds, Rita adds the necessary ambience to make the project an impeccable piece of design. old Crown' resort accreditation by RCI and is considered the most premium among holiday resorts in the country. Besides, Mr. Naresh Khattar also owns Enaar Exports, an export house recongnised by the Government of India.

19. Yogesh Vaidya, Software Technology Group

With an extensive background in the corporate training and education markets, Mr. Vaidya guides eWebUniversity's focus as it addresses the high-growth e-learning market. Before co-founding eWebUniversity, Mr. Vaidya was founder and chairman of Software Technology Group (STG), one of India 's top three IT software training and consulting companies. Prior to STG, Mr. Vaidya co-founded the HCL Group, one of the largest IT conglomerates in Asia . Mr. Vaidya holds bachelor's degrees in electronic and electrical engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS).

20. Anurag Jain, Vision Healthsource

Anurag Jain founded Vision Healthsource in 1997 to deliver end-to-end process outsourcing services to U.S healthcare providers. He functions as the Chief Executive of Vision Healthsource, Inc. He also co-founded Brigade Corporation, a customer support company, and managed the company's 700 customer support employees worldwide, as the Global VP of Operations that raised over $115 million from venture capital firms such as General Atlantic Partners and Mohr, Davidow, although the company failed. AJ was a management consultant with Gemini Consulting where he launched wireless operations for telecom carriers worldwide. He holds an MBA from the University of Michigan and a BS degree in Electronics and Electrical Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences, Pilani , India . Chennai-based Vision Healthsource is one of the leading Health care Business Process Outsourcing (HBPO) companies in India with a client base of over 25 US-based healthcare billing companies. A part of $1.3 billion Perot Systems of the US , Vision offers its services to the US-based medical billing companies, hospitals, payors and third party processors with specialisation in claims, administrative processing and revenue-cycle management. The company handles US$ 1 billion worth provider claims per year for physicians and hospital-based and physician specialties across the US and over 500 people process more than 25 million transactions from Chennai.

How we created this list: When we started working on this article, we “uncovered” so many successful BITSians in India that we didn’t know how to create this list. Finally we settled on two simple criteria – the company had to be Indian and the individual had to be the CEO. This eliminated at least 20 CEOs of Indian arms of International companies (many large and famous ones) as well as many powerful board members, business unit heads and other such individuals. In creating our ranking we used only one measure – revenues. Although this may appear rather narrow, this is the least controversial measure we could think of. Over time, we will also introduce you to many other sparkling gems. And of course, if we’ve missed anyone or made any errors, please email us. We hope to make this list a regular annual feature.   ■