Wipro manager becomes Young Global Leader
By Shalini Singh

The World Economic Forum describes itself as “an independent, not-for-profit foundation striving towards a world-class corporate governance system where values are as important a basis as rules. Our motto is ‘entrepreneurship in the global public interest’”. It plays host to the most powerful people in the world.

At the World Economic Forum in Switzerland you may come across Russian strongman Putin chatting to Bill Gates while music genius Bono has a quiet word with the French President. 

The World Economic Forum also selects ‘Young Global Leaders’ to honour achievers and connect young men and women who will play a key role in shaping our future. This year the Young Global Leaders will meet in May in Tanzania.  In the past few years, such Young Global Leaders included the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Google founders Larry and Sergey, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and even CNBC star Shereen Bhan.

This year the list of young global leaders include tech movers and shakers like Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, Google VP Marissa Mayer and YouTube co-founder Steven Chen.

The Indians honoured as young global leaders of 2010 include Minister of State for Rural Development, Agatha Sangma, Filmmaker and Actress Nandita Das and Vindhya e-Infomedia CEO Ashok Giri Durgesh.  Senior executives from Abraaj Capital, UBS, Apax Partners, Comat Technologies and Leadcap Trust make it to the 2010 list.

Among the Indian tech majors, only Wipro Senior Vice President and Head of EAS, Sangita Singh, has made it to this exclusive group. According to Wipro: “Prior to taking over as the Head of EAS business unit, Sangita was the Vice-President and Chief Marketing Officer at Wipro. In her role as the Chief marketing Officer, she contributed significantly in building the global Wipro brand by implementing innovative ideas and initiatives. She redefined the role of Marketing in the Indian IT services industry by implementing “RoI driven marketing” initiatives. Under her leadership, Wipro won two technology marketing best practices awards - the IDC CMO global best practices award and ITSMA (IT Services Marketing association) Services Marketing Excellence award. Sangita is a recipient of “Best Asian Woman Executive” award by Stevie Awards and winner of “EXCELLENCE IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY” award by FLO, the women’s wing of FICCI. Also, she has been awarded the “Best Product Manager for Asia Pacific” by Adobe and has won the “Best Sales Person” of the year twice in a row, “Best Product Manager” award for five consecutive years and the Wipro President’s Award twice.”

As you can imagine such a list is always subjective.  So who selects these global young leaders?   The Selection Committee is chaired by Queen Rania from Jordan.  While USA and Europe is over represented in the selection committee, a few prominent Indians also play a key role.  The Indians on the selection committee include Indian Express Editor in Chief Shekhar Gupta, India Today Editor in Chief Aroon Purie and NTDTV boss Prannoy Roy.