This year’s IPOY award function will be held in Mumbai on December 21
The IMPACT Person of the Year (IPOY) award to felicitate outstanding achievement in the media, marketing & advertising world has grown from strength to strength over the years. Past winners of IPOY constitute an illustrious group.
The IPOY award was constituted in 2005, and the then CEO of Star India Network, Peter Mukerjea, was the first IMPACT Person of the Year. Under his leadership, Star India had turned profitable and he played a pivotal role in re-launching Star’s flagship channel, Star Plus, as a Hindi channel in 2000, post which it became India’s Number 1 Hindi GEC.
In 2006, Editor-in-Chief of CNN-IBN, Rajdeep Sardesai, was given the IPOY award. Sardesai had been actively involved in setting up the entire IBN Network & continues to do so. “In media, there is always a team supporting you. And, I have been very fortunate to bring on such a wonderful team to the platform for IBN. The team’s passion and energy has brought us this recognition,” Sardesai said on winning the award.
Dr Vijay Mallya, Chairman, UB Group was adjudged IPOY in 2007 for heading one of India’s largest conglomerates successfully. Heading the UB group since he was 28, Mallya became a non-resident Indian to pursue global opportunities and to transform the UB Group into a multinational company.
In 2008, for the first time in the history of IPOY, two awards were given away in the same year. The winners were IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi and Raghav Bahl, founder, controlling shareholder & MD, Network 18 (Editorial Choice IPOY Award). Bahl was chosen for growing his business hugely, crafting success stories with global media giants like NBC Universal, Viacom, Time Warner, Forbes, A&E Networks and GS Homeshopping (Korea). “There is nothing worse than being an unchallenged leader because you tend to get complacent. We don’t underestimate competition, but that doesn’t mean we are going to give up our leadership,” Bahl said after winning the award. Modi was chosen for the success of the Indian Premier League (IPL), and taking the T-20 format of the game to a new high. He transformed the sport and built IPL into a huge enterprise.
In 2009, the then CEO of CA Media, Rajesh Kamat was the IMPACT Person of the Year. He had just moved from Viacom18 Group, where he was COO and CEO of Colors. In his three years at Viacom18, Kamat was instrumental in launching Colors and rapidly taking it to an enviable position in the Hindi GEC space, both in India and in 30 other countries where it is distributed.
The next year, 2010, Uday Shankar, CEO of Star India Network, was honoured with the IPOY award. It had been a spectacular rise for Shankar after he joined the Star network as CEO of the Star News channel. He became the CEO of Star TV India and oversaw Star TV’s business ventures in India. While ensuring that Star’s market grew exponentially, he also succeeded in keeping the flagship channel at No. 1 spot. “I thought changing things in a country of this scale would take millions of years… the power of mainstream media is enormous,” Shankar said on winning the award.
Last year, the IPOY award went to two big achievers – advertising wizard Agnello Dias and (Editorial Choice) Haresh Chawla, then Group CEO of Network 18 & Viacom 18. While Dias, Chairman & Co-Founder of TapRoot India, has been a pioneer in the creative field for the last two decades and the brain behind campaigns such as “Har Ek Friend Zaroori Hota Hai” for Brand Airtel, Chawla had created a unique proposition for all Network 18 channels and turned them into a profitable venture.
Making a list of people deserving IPOY this year hasn’t been easy, and as the excitement builds up, one just has to wait and watch to see who among the illustrious nominees will be the IMPACT Person of the Year, 2012.
NOMINEES THIS YEAR
The nominees for IPOY, 2012 are Ambika Soni, MP and former Union Cabinet Minister for Information & Broadcasting, Man Jit Singh, CEO, Multi Screen Media (MSM), Punit Goenka, MD & CEO, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL), Sanjay Gupta, CEO, Jagran Prakashan Limited (JPL), Vikram Sakhuja, CEO-designate of Maxus Worldwide and Vineet Jain, MD, Bennett Coleman & Co. Limited. The much-awaited award ceremony will be held in Mumbai on December 21, 2012.
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