Eight nominees – all equally deserving – are in the race this year. It will be a photo finish when the winner is announced on December 15 in Mumbai
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 make up an illustrious group.
Constituted in 2005, the award has gone to illustrious names in the industry including Vineet Jain, managing director of Bennett, Coleman & Co, Uday Shankar, CEO of Star India Network, Punit Goenka, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL), among others.
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.
In 2011, 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.
The 2012 award was conferred to then Information & Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni who was the catalyst behind the landmark shift to the massive task of digitising television in India. Her relentless and path-breaking work in the media and entertainment domain also made her the obvious choice for the year. It was during her stint at the ministry between May 2009 and October 2012 that she worked on safeguarding progressive content on television while promoting self-regulation in broadcast and other media. She also widened the reach of Indian language channels, firmed up FM Phase III policies in radio and supported the print industry to ensure growth even during the economic downturn.
In 2013, Vineet Jain, the managing director of Bennett, Coleman & Co, was adjudged the Impact Person of the Year. While, in all modesty, he accepted the award on behalf of his brother Samir Jain, Vice Chairman, and the Times Family, he was presented with the award for his industry-shaping initiatives that had redefined media consumption in the digital age, setting a benchmark with young and vibrant media products and leading the paradigm shift to adoption of technology in the media & entertainment industry.
In 2014, Punit Goenka, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) received the award for being at the forefront of change in television audience measurement in the country, driving profitability in the broadcast sector, and steering ZEEL to steady growth. He has been working in association with other broadcasters to push digitization through the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF). As Chairman of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), Goenka leads the initiative to create a new architecture for the television audience measurement and ratings system in the country.
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, 2015.
NOMINEES THIS YEAR
The eight nominees for the award this year are Amitabh Kant, Secretary, Industrial Policy and Promotion, Govt. of India, Arnab Goswami, President- News & Editor-in-Chief, Times Now and ET Now, Ashish Bhasin, ?Chairman & CEO South Asia of Dentsu Aegis Network, CVL Srinivas, CEO of GroupM South Asia, Kunal Bahl, co-founder and CEO of Snapdeal, Nikesh Arora, President & CEO of SoftBank Corp, Rana Kapoor, co-founder, MD & CEO of Yes Bank and Vijay Shekhar Sharma founder & CEO of Paytm. The much-awaited award ceremony will be held in Mumbai on December 15, 2015.
