Mr. Manvinder Singh Banga
Mr. Manvinder Singh Banga was born on October 31, 1954 and was I.I.T Delhi's Gold Medalist in Mechanical Engineering in 1975. He then joined Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, where too he won the gold medal in the class of 1977. Mr. Banga joined Hindustan Lever Limited as a Management Trainee in 1977. Upto 1992, he worked in a variety of Sales and Marketing assignments in the Detergents and Personal Care Categories in India including a spell with Lever Brothers, UK. From 1993 to 1995 he was the Head of Hindustan Lever Limited Personal Products Business.
Between August 1995 and end of 1998 he was Executive Director and Head of the Soaps & Detergents Business - HLL's largest business division, and also Unilever's single largest Soaps and Detergent business by volume (1.1 million tonnes) with sales of about Rs. 4000 crores, 12,000 employees and 16 factories. He was also the Category Leader for the Detergents business for Unilever's Central Asia & Middle East Business Group. In December 1998 he moved to the Unilever Head Office in London as Senior Vice President and responsible for the Hair and Oral Care Categories with a total sales value of 2.5 billion. In addition, Mr. Banga led the Company's initiative into mass market foods. A new business model was created which won Unilever's Foods Innovation Award in 1998.
In May, 2000 he was appointed Chairman of Hindustan Lever limited. Today, he is the youngest ever Chairman of India's largest FMCG company and also the largest by market capitalisation, with a turnover of Rs. 11000 crores and close to 40,000 employees. He has achieved this in a company, which is universally regarded for its professionalism in recognizing nothing but only merit. This in itself indicates his exceptional achievement and excellence. Of course, on the road to Chairmanship, he has left marks of his excellence in creating new growth avenues for HLL's existing businesses, establishing altogether new businesses and global strategy formulation for the parent company, Unilever's worldwide business in 88 countries.
HLL has been well known as a company which nurtures talent. He has taken this to new heights. Since taking over as Chairman, he has made several changes to the organisation's structure to provide greater empowerment and make jobs richer, and to push decision-making deeper into the organisation. Mr. Banga lives by the values he is driving in HLL - Courage, Truth, Action and Caring.
In honouring Mr. Manvinder Singh Banga, we recognise the outstanding contributions made by him as a Leader in International Market, and through his achievements brought glory to the name of this Institute.
Prof. A.J. Paulraj
Professor Arogyaswamy Paulraj received his Doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in 1973 while on deputation from the Indian Navy. Professor Paulraj joined the Indian Navy as a cadet in 1961 and completed courses in Military subjects and Electronics Engineering in 1966, obtaining first rank in both. During his deputation at IIT Delhi, he led the development of an improved version of antisubmarine sonar for the Indian Navy. This project was a significant success and bought much visibility to the Department of Electrical Engineering and helped initiate close linkages with external research and development institutions.
From 1973 to 1983, Professor Paulraj headed a team at the Naval Oceanographic Laboratory, Cochin to develop very large sonar systems (the APSOH family) giving India the most advanced sonar technology. From 1987 to 1989 he supervised the development of a large systems software suite for parallel computers at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Bangalore and concurrently supervised the development of radar and communications systems at Bharat Electronics. He was the founding Director of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Bangalore, and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Bangalore. He is currently a Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department at Stanford University, where he has pioneered the development of a new wireless technology using multiple antennas.
Professor Paulraj’s research has spanned several disciplines, emphasizing estimation theory, sensor signal processing, parallel computer architectures/algorithms and space-time signal processing for wireless systems. He has won about a dozen awards for academic performance and professional contributions including the Ati Vishishth Seva Medal from the Navy in 1983 and the Scientist of the Year Award from DRDO in 1984. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Fellow of the Institutions of Engineers (India), and a Fellow of the Institute of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineers (India).
In honouring Professor Arogyaswami Paulraj, we recognise the outstanding contributions made by an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi as an Electronics Engineer, and as an Institution Builder, earning recognition and through his achievements bringing glory to the name of the Institute.