The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India held its fifth annual awards function on December 9 at Palace Grounds to honour business leaders, CFOs and chartered accountants across industries who have excelled in their respective area of work.

Minister for Corporate Affairs India, Dr Veerappa Moily, gave away the awards to the winners. Rehman Khan, Vice Chairman Rajya Sabha presided over the function.

The awards were given in three categories, CA business achiever, chief financial officer and CA professional achiever.
There were six awards in each category with leaders chosen from over 78 nominations from various industries such as manufacturing sector, financial sector, services sector, information technology, media and entertainment sector, telecom sector, healthcare sector, public sector, infrastructure and construction.

Speaking on the occasion, G Ramaswamy, President, ICAI said, In a dynamic and challenging business environment, chartered accountants are considered as complete business solution providers.

Adding that chartered accountants play a vital role in assisting business and industry to optimise the use of resources, improve their efficiency as well as facilitate in enabling them to achieve their objectives, Ramaswamy said, The ICAI awards recognise the achievements of outstanding CAs whose professional achievements and service to the society exemplify the objectives of their alma mater.

The awards were conferred based on multiple criteria in each of the categories as well as sub categories. To highlight a few, the Business Achiever award was evaluated on entrepreneurial skills, creating valuable business opportunities, pioneering new and improved ways of doing business, conceiving a new concept or product as a result of financial engineering, promoting and supporting high degree of transparency in operations and financial information, assuming social responsibility towards environment, safety and health, improving financial performance of the organisation after assuming position.

The jury comprised of eminent industrialists, businessmen, representatives of national trade bodies, regulators, academicians, heads of Universities, past Presidents of ICAI, journalists, political workers, persons from film industry.
Chairing the eminent jury was N R Narayan Murthy, chairman emeritus, Infosys.
The CFO and CA Professional Achiever award was based on effective management of financial risks of a business, its sustained growth and development, managing acquisitions, mergers, amalgamations, tie-ups, takeover of business enterprises, raising capital through innovative financial products, ability tomanage people and maintain high morale of accounting and finance proessionals, thorough knowledge of corporate laws and reporting requirements, to name a few.
The awards function concluded with a grand finale, with an enthralling performance from the renowned singer Usha Uthup who charmed the audience with her famous numbers.