MAM
Brand-comm Survey ’05: Murthy most admired business leader
MUMBAI: Infosys chairman and chief mentor Narayana Murthy has emerged as India’s most admired business leader, for the 4th consecutive year, in a survey conducted by Brand-comm. The management students of 12 leading management institutes across the country who participated in the survey admire Mr. Narayana Murthy for being a visionary that he is, and for his value systems.
Ratan Tata, Chairman of Tata Group, occupies second position in the list of most admired business leaders. Interestingly, Ratan Tata had a much lower rating last year. All the management students who chose Ratan Tata admire him for his leadership qualities. Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro Technologies follows closely, occupying the third position.
According to the study, the Ambani sons seem to have dropped in the popularity charts. The others mentioned in the survey include leaders like Sunil Mittal, Kumaramangalam Birla, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Vijay Mallya, Ram Dorai, Vivek Paul. Surprisingly no new names were cited by significant numbers over the last 4 years.
Ramanujam Sridhar CEO Brand-comm said, “Branding is a long term phenomenon. Narayana Murthy has consistently stood for values and ethics that management students (and investors) admire. He also demonstrates the value of personal branding. It has been our constant endeavour to track and learn about admired personal and corporate brands. It will make us happy, if Brand-comm annual study provides insights to marketers as well as Advertising and PR agencies.”
The B-School students participating in the study named Infosys and Tata as the two most attractive Indian companies to work for. HLL, which occupied the top rank last year, has slipped to the third place. Both Infosys and Tata were chosen for providing the best work environment and work culture. Interestingly, this year, consulting firms like McKinsey and Boston Consulting are considered as the preferred choice of IIM students.
Tata Group was named as the “most admired corporate brand with operations in India”. Infosys follows Tata in this category. As much as 14 foreign corporate brands have been mentioned as “the best corporate brand with operations in India”.
The study also reveals that a majority of the B-School students, who are next generation business leaders, have expressed their desire to become entrepreneurs rather than work for an organisation. This trend is fuelled by the success of leading entrepreneurs who have significantly contributed to the overall growth of the economy and serve as role models to future managers.
Pavan Padaki, Director – Creative Planning, Brand-comm, who has been the architect of this study for the past four years, said, “Consulting, Software/EDP, Banking/Financial Services, FMCG, followed by Investment Banking continue to be the top five industry sectors as a choice for immediate placement. The IIMs preference for “Consulting” is significantly higher when compared to the other B-Schools. Surprisingly, the much-hyped sectors like Telecom, Bio-Tech, Pharma /Healthcare, Insurance, BPO, Fashion, Retail etc. are yet to be attractive for the B-School students this year too. “
Every year Brand-comm undertakes annual B-School Study with the objective of getting an insight into business leaders and companies admired by the management students of the leading B-schools in India and to give a cross-sectional view of the psyche of B-school students, who are on the threshold of entering the corporate world. The idea is also to study the power of ‘personal branding’ in today’s business scenario.
12 business management schools (including 5 IIMs) participated in the study and a total of 309 final year B-School students responded to a self-filling questionnaire.
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
