Current Year Judges

Mr. Mukul Upadhyaya

Associated with the Bajaj Group for over six decades, Mukul Upadhyaya has been an integral part of its communication and brand journey.

He joined Bajaj Electricals Ltd. as a Management Trainee and rose to become Vice President and a member of the company’s Top Management Committee. Over the years, he has played a pivotal role in shaping the company’s brand identity, advertising communication, public relations, and marketing research functions.
Mukulji has also been closely involved with special projects and events of various Bajaj Group companies, Foundations, and Trusts. He has compiled, edited, and published numerous group publications, documenting the Bajaj heritage with care and insight.

A veteran of the Indian advertising industry, he has been a strong advocate of self-regulation in advertising communication. His contributions include:

• Two-term President, International Advertising Association – India Chapter
• Founding Member, Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI)
• Founding Member, Media Research Users Council of India (MRUC)
• Executive Councillor, Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA)
• Two-term President, The Advertising Club, Bombay

He has also led Indian delegations to various Asian and World Advertising Congresses, representing the industry on global platforms.

Mukulji has been associated with the Jamnalal Bajaj Puraskars and the IMC Ladies Wing Jankidevi Bajaj Puraskar for Women Entrepreneurs since their inception, contributing significantly to their vision and growth.

Mrs. Deepa Soman

Mrs. Deepa Soman, an Economics graduate from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, and a Business Management alumna of S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research, began her career with Hindustan Lever Limited in sales and marketing research. Driven by a vision for balanced, conscious, and sustainable growth, she founded Lumière Business Solutions in 1996 to help women professionals return to work. Lumière operates in consumer research, consulting, and design, and has been featured as a case study on hbr.org and in Rashmi Bansal’s book, Follow Every Rainbow.

Deepa is also a consumer researcher, coach, mentor, and facilitator, serving as a thought partner to individuals and organizations. She speaks on women and work, entrepreneurship, and consumer-centric innovation, and anchors Lumière Learning Monday and Wise Wednesday on her YouTube channel, Lumierelightandinsight. Alongside her husband, Milind, she engages in leadership coaching and recently produced a documentary memoir of their 150-year-old ancestral home.

Deepa is passionate about purpose, positive intent, and interconnectedness, continuously creating content and inspiring others through her professional and social initiatives.

Mrs. Mrinalini Kher

Mrinalini Kher is a renowned social entrepreneur with over three decades of dedicated service to education, skill development, and community empowerment. Born into a family passionate about education and social service, she continued this legacy through her active role in the Kherwadi Social Welfare Association (KSWA), where she has served as Honorary Secretary and Trustee for 35 years. She is also the co-founder of Yuva Parivartan (YP), a KSWA initiative transforming the lives of underprivileged school dropouts through skills development and livelihood opportunities.

Over the years, Mrinalini has organized seven International Summits on Livelihood & Employment, six career fairs, and initiatives like “Breaking Barriers, Standing Tall” to honor women achievers. She has been invited to speak on social entrepreneurship, youth, and skill development at forums including NSDC, TEDx, CII, IIT Roorkee, XLRI Jamshedpur, and has mentored students at IIT Mumbai. She also actively conducts workshops on POSH (Prevention of Sexual Harassment) and workplace laws for corporates.

Beyond YP, she is a trustee of Blue Star Foundation and serves on advisory boards like Step Academy, Udaipur, contributing to education, empowerment, and social welfare initiatives. Alongside her husband, Kishor Kher, she was a finalist for the Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, reflecting her lifelong commitment to creating meaningful social impact.

Mr. Pradip Shah

Pradip Shah is a distinguished entrepreneur and business leader with a pioneering legacy in India’s financial and corporate sectors. He founded IndAsia in 1998 and forged a joint venture with AMP in 2001 to strengthen India’s private equity space. Earlier, he helped establish the Indocean Fund and was the Founder MD of CRISIL, India’s first and largest credit rating agency, where he rated over 800 companies and played a key role in institution building and knowledge transfer internationally.

An alumnus of Harvard Business School, Pradip is a Chartered and Cost Accountant, ranking first in India in his CA exams. He has served as a consultant to USAID, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank, and held leadership positions on multiple national and state-level finance and governance committees.

Pradip chairs Kansai Nerolac, Grindwell Norton, and Sonata Software, and serves on boards including BASF (India), Godrej & Boyce, Hardy Oil and Gas (U.K.), Pfizer, and Tata Investment Corporation. He is also the co-founder of Universal Trustees Pvt. Ltd. and promotes Grow-Trees.com, a social enterprise driving sustainability through tree planting.

Ms. Saumya Ro

Saumya Roy is a Mumbai-based journalist and activist committed to supporting marginalized communities. In 2010, she co-founded Vandana Foundation, working to enhance the livelihoods of the city’s poorest micro-entrepreneurs and engaging closely with communities dependent on Deonar. Her writing has been featured in Forbes India, WSJ.com, and Bloomberg News, and she contributed a chapter to Dharavi: The Cities Within (HarperCollins, 2013), an anthology on Asia’s largest slum.

Mr. Shyamsunder Shrikrishna Maniyar

Mr. Shyamsunder Maniyar is a distinguished engineer and philanthropy leader with a career spanning over four decades. An alumnus of IIT Bombay with a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering, he was a recipient of the President of India’s National Merit Scholarship.

He has held senior leadership positions in several leading Indian and multinational engineering companies before venturing into entrepreneurship. For nearly 30 years, he successfully ran his own enterprise in the design and manufacture of specialized process machines for critical applications in the chemical, pharmaceutical, agrochemical, petrochemical, pesticides, and paint industries, with facilities accredited by both Indian and multinational consultants.

For the last 11 years, Mr. Maniyar has been serving as Chief – CSR Projects and Principal Officer at the Bajaj Group Charitable Trusts, where he oversees the philanthropic initiatives and financial stewardship of 47 charitable trusts. Under his guidance, these trusts have significantly contributed to community development, healthcare, education, and other social welfare initiatives, strengthening the Bajaj Group’s legacy of nation-building and service.

Dr. Vandana Chakrabarti

Dr. Vandana Chakrabarti is an eminent educator and social work professional with over three decades of leadership in higher education, adult literacy, and community development. A Gold Medalist in Psychology from the University of Kerala, she earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Social Work from TISS, Mumbai, and holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Education Management from SNDT Women’s University.

Her long association with SNDT spanned senior academic and administrative roles, including Pro-Vice Chancellor, Director of Lifelong Learning and Extension, and head of the Department of Social Work, where she shaped programmes impacting thousands of students and community learners. She pioneered India’s first M.A. in Non-Formal Education and Development and numerous certificate and vocational courses empowering women and girls nationwide.

Dr. Chakrabarti’s scholarship includes books, peer-reviewed articles, commissioned studies for the Government of India, and over 150 e-learning modules for UGC’s ePG Pathshala project.

Internationally recognised, she received a Fulbright Fellowship, was a Visiting Professor at the University of Würzburg, and was inducted into the International Hall of Fame in Adult and Continuing Education (2024). Her work has earned awards such as the Tagore Literacy Award, Bhaskar Karve Award, and Niranjana Award for Social Work Education.