Suresh Senapathy, corporate vice-president (finance) and chief financial officer of Wipro, has been judged the CFO of the Year at the 'India CFO Awards 2002' organised by IMA India and American Express for his contribution to the finance function and in strategically partnering the CEO.
Senapathy was chosen for the award because of the notable work undertaken by him in setting standards for transparency in financial reporting and disclosure and towards creating a world class organisation.
"The awards have chosen to honour individuals who have demonstrated outstanding capabilities and achievements in the wake of fundamental transformations to their core functions," M S Verma, chairman of the jury, said.
In the most competitive category of cost optimisation, Praveen Kadle, executive director (finance and company affairs), Tata Engineering, has been selected as the role model CFO in the design and execution of finance reengineering initiatives.
Cost reduction was a key element of the company's turnaround and it has achieved savings of Rs 750 crore (Rs 7.50 billion) in the last two and a half years.
Sanjeev Agrawal, CFO (India region), Standard Chartered Bank, has been selected for the mergers and acquisitions category award.
On considering the strategies and technologies implemented to share information that have added value effectively across businesses/companies, the members of the jury have selected V Balakrishnan, CFO, Owens Corning for the information and knowledge management category award.
The awards were adjudged by an independent jury consisting of M S Verma, chairman, TRAI, T V Mohandas Pai, CFO, Infosys, Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman, Bharti Enterprises, Arun Duggal, CFO, HCL Tech, Pronab Sen, economic adviser, Planning Commission, P K Choudhury, MD, ICRA, Pradip Shah, chairman, IndAsia Fund Advisers, Partho Dutta, president (finance), Murugappa Group and Hari Mundra, vice-chairman and ED, Wockhardt India.
A total of 145 nominations across categories were received for the CFO Awards this year. Last year, the CFO of the year award was conferred on T V Mohandas Pai, CFO of Infosys Technologies.
The jury took into consideration several parameters such as the ability to undertake new initiatives, their success and impact on the company, the CFO's role in better compliance and superior accounting practices, good corporate governance and contribution towards society.
"We have seen the transformation of the role of CFOs from one of pure finance to that of leadership and strategic decision making," Sandeep Shastri, head (global corporate services), American Express, said.