@8 Indians Among Top 50 Thinkers@

Is it the business gurus or the executives in the boardroom that shapes the future of global business? Thoughts make a great difference in the world of business. Therefore, going by Thinkers 50 list, business professors and management innovators are the ones who do the real thinking. Thinkers50 is keeping pace with ideas and thoughts that are influencing the global business and managers over a decade now. The ranking will guide us to the personalities who are known little to the general public but admired throughout the business world. Amongst the 50, eight Indians are included in the list of top Management Thinkers from across the globe.

1. Vijay Govindarajan

Vijay Govindarajan, popularly known as VG has been ranked at number 3. He is the Earl C. Daum Professor of International Business at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Being world's leading expert on strategy and innovation, Govindarajan said, "It is humbling to be ranked number 3 alongside great management thought leaders as well as to receive the Breakthrough Idea Award for the $300 House Initiative. These recognitions are motivators to work even harder to justify the honors." He has penned none books including the best sellers "Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators" and "the Other Side of Innovation". "The Other Side of Innovation" is his recent book which draws spotlight on how to change an innovative idea into a successful commercial business. Govindarajan is also responsible for posing the question that sparked a global challenge to build a $300 house. He has also worked with Jeff Immelt, General Electric's CEO and written a article with him collaborating with Chris Trimble which introduces the concept of reverse innovation and is rated by Harvard Business Review as one of the ten big ideas of the decade, and is the title of his forthcoming book, (with Chris Trimble), to be published by HBR Press in April 2012. Govindarajan has been ranked above Jim Collins (4), Michael Porter (5), Roger Martin (6), Marshall Goldsmith (7), and Marcus Buckingham (8).

2. Nitin Nohria
The dean of Harvard Business School, Nitin Nohria is ranked 13 in the list. The present dean has served in various senior positions at HBS including the co-chair of the Leadership Initiative, senior associate dean of faculty development and head of the organizational behavior unit. The author, co-editor of 16 books and over 50 journal articles, working papers and books has recently published his new book, " The Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice", co-edited with Rakesh Khurana. The book pulls together the most modern thinking on leadership associated with number of experts who attended a leadership colloquium structured by Nitin during the School's centennial celebrations. His three books, "In Their Time: The Greatest Business Leaders of the 20th Century", "Paths to Power: How Insiders and Outsiders Shaped American Business Leadership" and "Entrepreneurs, Managers, and Leaders: Leadership Lessons from the Airline Industry" glances at the history of American leadership. The books scrutinize the lives of great leaders, their path to power and lessons to be learned by them.

3. Nirmalya Kumar
Ranked 26, Nirmalya Kumar is a marketing professor at London Business School. Apart from that, he is also the co-director of Aditya Birla India Centre. The growth of India as an economic force and marketing strategies are his domain of focus. The Author of several books is credited with introducing the concept of "3Vs": valued customer, value network and value proposition. His books like "Marketing as Strategy: Understanding the CEO's Agenda for Driving Growth and Innovation", "Global Marketing" and "Private Label Strategy: How to Meet the Store Brand Challenge" focuses on the marketing strategies. India's Global Powerhouses: How They Are Taking on the World, Kumar gives an insider's guide to doing business with Indian leaders and companies. His latest book "India Inside: The Emerging Innovation Challenge to the West", is co-authored with Phanish Puranam a London Business School colleague. Being a dedicated collector of the work of Indian artist Jamini Roy, Kumar has the largest collection of Roy paintings outside of India.

4. Pankaj Ghemawat
The Anselmo Rubiralta Professor of Global Strategy at IESE Business School, in Spain, Panka Ghemawat is ranked 27th in thelist. Popular for his efforts on globalization, he authored books like "Games businesses play: Cases and Models", "Creating value through international strategy", "Redefining global strategy"; "Crossing borders in a world where differences still matter" and "Strategy and the business landscape". His latest work "World 3.0: Global prosperity and how to achieve it" scrutinizes the assumptions made regarding globalization. He disagrees with the idea of single global economy as mentioned in the The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. He refutes on the base economic measures and indicators. He says, in a semi-globalized world at best.

5. Vineet Nayar
Vineet Nayar, the Vice Chairman and CEO of HCL Technologies, a global information technology services company based in India, is ranked 40th. His exceptional management philosophy of placing his employees first and customers second stimulated his triumph. His book "Employees First, Customers Second" speaks about his management upheaval. Following his less conservative management system, Nayar never minds a dance with company's employee at wide Direction event, both on stage and crowd. He feels it reduces barriers between CEO and employee. With an engineering degree in India, followed by an MBA, Nayar boarded HCL back in 1985 and became the president of the company in 2005, CEO in 2007 and Chairman in 2010. HCL has won awards for best employer and most influential upcoming company under Nayar.

6. Rakesh Khurana
Ranked as 41st among the top management thinkers, Rakesh Khurana is the Marvin Bower professor of leadership development at the Harvard Business School. His main focus is into macro-organizational theory and the dynamics of executive labor markets. Famous for his book Searching for a Corporate Savior: The Irrational Quest for Charismatic CEOs, Rakesh has authored and edited four books and several articles. His managerial articles throw light on the problems associated with fascinating leadership. "From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession" is his second book that deals with the expansion of American business education and the profession of management elevated fundamental queries about the efficiency of business education and the types of business leaders and managers they have been educating. Khurana is also the co-author with Nitin Nohria, that positions dominance for generating value for society as the purpose of management.

7. Sheena Iyengar
The S.T. Lee Professor of Business at Columbia Business School, and research director of the Jerome A. Chazen Institute of International Business, Sheena Iyengar is the only Indian female included in the list. She is ranked at 48th number. Known for her work on choice, Iyengar has received the Best Dissertation Award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology in 1998, for her thesis, "Choice and Its Discontents."The Art of Choosing, the award winning book published in 2010 inspected several aspects of choice like how and why people make choice and how many factors manipulates their choice. She aims at making people better equipped handle the overpowering variety of choice in everyday life. Choices for Iyengar were not that easy. Suffering from worsening sight, she was unable to read and was completely blind by her late teens. Regardless of obstacles, Iyengar pursued her ambitions to go to college, and pursued an academic career.

8. Subir Chowdhury
The Chairman and CEO of ASI Consulting Group and esteemed quality expert and strategist, Subir Chowdhury is at the 50th number. He suggests CEOs and senior leaders of Fortune 100 companies as well as organizations in the public, private and not-for profit sectors all over the world, serving them make quality a part of their business culture. Business week labeled Chowdhury as "The Quality Prophet". He authored "The Power of Six Sigma: An Inspiring Tale of How Six Sigma is Transforming the Way We Work", an international bestseller and 12 other business titles. Design for Six Sigma is his first book on the topic and credited with popularizing the DFSS philosophy worldwide. The Ice Cream Maker is a business fable about Pete and the ice cream factory he manages; in which he establishes the next generation management system, LEO: Listen, Enrich and Optimize. His latest book is The Power of LEO: The Revolutionary Process for Achieving Extraordinary Results.

Courtesy: Silicon India