News Broadcasting
CNBC-TV18 hosts 13th Edition of ‘India Business Leader Awards’
MUMBAI: CNBC-TV18’s highly-awaited annual awards night – the ‘India Business Leader Awards’ (IBLA) was held in New Delhi yesterday. The event honored high-achievers, outstanding leaders and true visionaries of corporate India. CNBC-TV18 felicitated personalities who have contributed their expertise to bring about an equitable economic growth and have excelled in building profitable, sustainable and socially conscious businesses.
The awards were presented by Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Law & Justice, and Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Government of India and Hasmukh Adhia, Finance Secretary.
CNBC-TV18, Managing Editor, Shereen Bhan said, “CNBC-TV18 has been at the forefront of chronicling entrepreneurial India’s growth and evolution. For more than a decade, The India Business Leaders Awards has emerged as a destination to celebrate ideas & entrepreneurship.”
The 13th Edition of IBLA followed the theme of “Leaders of Change” and highlighted the efforts of those stalwarts who believe in creating equitable & profitable businesses with a lazer sharp focus on specialization, innovation & differentiation.
Highlights of the awards night can be tracked using the #CNBCTV18IBLA #LeadersOfChange
Below are the list of IBLA 2018 winners:
News Broadcasting
Senior media executive Madhu Soman exits Zee Media
Former Reuters and Bloomberg leader says he leaves with “no regrets” after brief stint at WION and Zee Business
NOIDA: Madhu Soman, a veteran of global newsrooms and media sales floors, has stepped away from Zee Media Corporation after a short stint steering business strategy for WION and Zee Business.
In a reflective LinkedIn note marking his departure, Soman said his time within the network’s corridors was always likely to be brief. “Some chapters close faster than expected,” he wrote, signalling the end of a nearly two-year spell in which he oversaw both editorial partnerships and commercial strategy.
Soman joined Zee Media in 2022 after more than a decade abroad with Reuters and Bloomberg, returning to India to take on the role of chief business officer for WION and Zee Business. His mandate was ambitious: bridge the newsroom and the revenue desk while expanding digital and broadcast reach.
During the stint, Zee Business reached break-even for the first time since its launch in 2005, while WION refreshed programming and strengthened its digital footprint across platforms such as YouTube and Facebook.
But Soman suggested the cultural fit proved uneasy. Describing himself as a “cultural misfit”, he hinted at deeper tensions between editorial instincts shaped in global newsrooms and the realities of India’s television news ecosystem.
Before joining Zee, Soman spent more than seven years at Bloomberg in Hong Kong as head of broadcast sales for Asia-Pacific, expanding the company’s news syndication business across several markets. Earlier, he held senior editorial roles at Reuters, overseeing online strategy in India and managing Reuters Video Services from London.
His career began in television and wire reporting, including a stint with ANI during the 1999 Kargil conflict, before moving into digital publishing as India’s internet media landscape took shape.
Now, after nearly three decades in broadcast and digital media, Soman is leaving Delhi NCR and returning to his hometown, Trivandrum.
Exhausted, he admits. But unbowed. And with one quiet line that sums up the journey: he didn’t sell his soul — because some things, after all, are not for sale.
