The 2019 Horasis India Meeting took place in Segovia, Spain over 23-24 June. More than 300 members of the Horasis Visions Community gathered to jointly inspire India and Spain’s future. Co-hosted by IE University and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the 2019 Horasis India Meeting explored Indian firms’ equilibrium in todays turbulent times, while debating how to grow India’s economy rapidly and sustainably. Download the report and visit the photo gallery.
Welcoming participants to the meeting and to Spain, Reyes Maroto, Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Spain explained that there is currently a great opportunity for Indian and Spanish cooperation. Sanjay Vema, Indian Ambassador to Spain conveyed that “India must more strongly engage with the world’s nations and especially with Spain with whom we have a very long history of trade and exchanges”. These comments were exemplified by Salvador Carmona, Rector, IE University, Spain who noted also the large diaspora of graduates and staff connected with IE who might assist India/Spain ventures. Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi, Minister of Sports & Youth Affairs, Government of Punjab, India, said “As a sportsman, it feels immense pride to talk about the transformational power of Youth & Sports to economic development.”
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| Reyes Maroto, Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Spain, keynoting the meeting | Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi, Minister of Sports & Youth Affairs, Government of Punjab |
T V Narendran, Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director, Tata Steel Limited; Vice President, CII, India talked about the building blocks for Spain’s and India’s shared economic and societal future “we must reach for our aspirations”. Nasser Munjee, Chairman, Development Credit Bank, India noted that the government has stated it has requests for $1 trillion for infrastructure development, though he thinks the reality might be $3 trillion.
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| Preetha Reddy, Vice Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals | Vijay Chauthailwale, Head of Foreign Affairs Department, Bharatiya Janata Party |
However, Juan Marin Guitard, Executive Senior Vice President, Banco Santander, Spain summed up our current financial malaise as “economists struggle to explain the past, even as they propose for the future”. And Sunil Mehta, Chairman, Punjab National Bank, India raised the issue of non-performing loans and the shadow banking that diminished the credit growth statistics “removing these and instigating good governance rules would allow firms to become nimbler enhancing India’s global standing.” While Sanjay Kirloskar, Chairman, Kirloskar Brothers, India opined that India ought to consider what it could offer the world and be more open to inwards investment while also carefully developing its skills base. Preetha Reddy, Vice Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals, India reminded us that India will soon have the world’s largest English-speaking youth but they must be suitably skilled: as an instance, India needs an additional 14 million health care workers.
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| Rajashree Birla, Chairperson, Aditya Birla Centre for Community Initiatives and Rural Development | Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Paytm |
Akhil Bansal, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, KPMG India, India, presented the prizes awarded by Horasis and KPMG to the Indian Business Leaders of the Year. This year the award winners were –
• Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Paytm
• Rajashree Birla, Chairperson, Aditya Birla Centre for Community Initiatives and Rural Dev
• D. Shivakumar, Group Executive President, Aditya Birla Group
• Anil Chaudhry, Managing Director, Schneider Electric India
• Roshni Nadar, Chief Executive Officer, HCL Enterprise
Vishal Chordia, Minister of State, State of Maharashtra, described Mumbai as the world’s emerging financial hub, and called his state a hot-bed for entrepreneurship and innovation. The needs were emphasised by Sumant Sinha, Founder and Chairman, ReNew Power Ventures, India who opined Indian needs to integrate all its infrastructures and to look after its environment.
Horasis – a global visions community committed to inspiring our future – provides a unique platform for companies from emerging and developed markets to globalize their operations.
Introduced 11 years ago, the meeting has become the foremost annual meeting of Indian business leaders and their global counterparts. With this meeting, Horasis offers business and government to discuss a wide range of issues related to the Indian economy. The location of the meeting rotates annually, and has been held in Munich (2009), Madrid (2010), Naples (2011), Antwerp (2012), Belfast (2013), Liverpool (2014), Interlaken (2015), Cascais (2016), Interlaken (2017), Malaga (2018) and Segovia (2019).
Spanish and Indian firms need to partner to forge enhanced growth initiatives.
Ram Madhav, National General Secretary, Bharatiya Janata Party, India
Entrepreneurship should be developed in a similar way to how cricket has evolved in India.
Vishal Chordia, Minister of State, State of Maharashtra, India
The world is undergoing a period of fundamental transition. Still, it would be wrong not to hold on to what worked previously.
Frank G. Wisner, former Under Secretary of State, USA
Technology is needed to increase productivity in industries such as agriculture.
Sanjay Kirloskar, Chairman, Kirloskar Brothers, India
I haven’t seen any market that has the opportunity that I see in India today.
Arun M. Kumar, Chairman and CEO, KPMG India, India
One of our basic needs is to ramp up our education of young people.
Sunil Kant Munjal, Chairman, Hero Corporate Services, India
Businesses have to adapt early and figure out what their contingency plans are to face the challenges of the new world order.
Mary V Andringa, Chair of the Board,Vermeer Corporation, USA
India and Spain share significant similarities, which is fundamental for economic and business collaboration between the countries.
Francisco de la Torre, Mayor of Malaga, Spain