Mr B. Muthuraman, managing director, Tata Steel was awarded 'The National HRD Network’s Path Finders Award 2004' — CEO category. This organisation gives the 'Path Finders Award' to CEOs who have steered some major transformation of their organisation through people and people processes. The award also carries a citation with it. Some of the past recipients of the award have been Mr R. A. Mashelkar, Mr R. S. Pawar, Mr Azim Premji and Mr Venu Srinivasan. The award was presented to Mr Muthuraman at the valedictory function of the National HRD Network’s annual conference on 'Emerging Asia — An HR Agenda', by Mr Adi Godrej, chairman, Godrej Group at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

The National HRD Network (NHRDN) was founded in 1985. It organises a conference every year. This year’s conference theme was 'Emerging Asian- An HR Agenda'. The conference was attended by around 700 delegates (mostly from HR function) from various corporate houses across India along with heads of HR and CEOs of Bangalore based companies.

The Path Finders Award this year has been chosen by a committee which was chaired by Mr Mashelkar. The other members being Mr R. R. Nair (advisor, Unilever), Professor Madhukar Shulka (XLRI), Mr Arvind Agarwal (president, corporate development and HR-RPG Enterprises)and Mr Santrupt Mishra (director — AV Birla Group).

Mr Muthuraman’s leadership at Tata Steel has been marked by further acceleration of the pace of change in the steel company. Tata Steel, in the recent past has implemented many innovative measures in the operations by ensuring the participation of all sections of the employees and empowering them to undertake improvement processes. The new credo of 'freedom to fail'
in the company has allowed it employees to unleash their potential and make historic profits (Rs 1,746 crore in 2003-04) and set new operational milestones (4.06 million tones of crude steel in 2003-04). Today, Tata Steel is one of the few EVA+ steel companies in the world and seeks to become a dominant player in the global steel industry by entering new markets and by pioneering unconventional applications of steel.