V Narayanan (POND'S) Memorial Endowment Lecture Mr V Narayanan was the first Managing Director of Pond’s (India) Ltd (1977 – 1991). A visionary leader who built the company’s business into leadership position in the personal products category, Mr Narayanan diversified the company into businesses earning valuable foreign exchange through exports of personal products, leather products, thermometers, and mushrooms. Pond’s India set up factories in backward locations such as Pondicherry, Tindivanam and Sikkim, generating employment. He was an exemplary leader and a role model to many managers who went onto become corporate leaders in their own right. Mr V Narayanan has been on the boards of many companies: Hindustan Unilever Ltd Ponds Exports Ltd Bata India Ltd Tamil Nadu Newsprint & Papers Ltd GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals Ltd Chemplast Sanmar Ltd Ucal Fuel Systems Ltd Rane Holdings Ltd Rane (Madras) Ltd Sundaram Fasteners Ltd MM Forgings Ltd Samtel Color Ltd Samtel Glass Ltd Nuvoco Vistas Corporation Ltd Madison Resource Foundation
V Narayanan 1938 - 2021
About the Endowment & the Inaugural Lecture Many of Mr Narayanan's former colleagues view that his extraordinary success in inspiring people by trusting them with huge challenging assignments needs to be remembered and perpetuated. They set up an endowment fund named as "V Narayanan [Pond's] Memorial Fund" in Madras Management Association to support the holding of annual memorial lectures on the subject of leadership; and to fund a few scholarships/cash awards to the best student and best woman student of Management at Madras University. The memorial lecture is a major event in the calendar of MMA every year and will be organised on 29th January, the birthday of Late V Narayanan. The inaugural V Narayanan (Ponds) Memorial Lecture was held on 29th June 2021. Mr N Sankar, Chairman, The Sanmar Group, shared “Recollections – 50 Year Friendship with V Narayanan” and Mr Harish Manwani, Former COO, Unilever, delivered the memorial lecture on the theme “Leadership in Turbulent Times”. The online memorial lecture was a grand success attended by over 10,500 participants from all over the world.
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