10 Most Influential Young Indians : Innovators

**CEO and Founder, OYO Rooms

Age: 22

Born in: Bissam Cuttack, Odisha**

He’s one of the youngest of OYO’s 2,000 employees, but he’s taken very seriously, and not just because he’s the CEO. Agarwal became an entrepreneur before he was legally considered an adult. And at an age when his peers are graduating from B-schools, the college dropout has expanded his initial idea into 65,000 rooms in 5,500 hotels in 191 cities across India and, recently, Malaysia.

**Political strategist; Mentor, I-PAC

Age: 39

Born in: Buxar, Bihar**

2014 was a watershed year in Indian politics, not just because of prime minister Narendra Modi’s (and the BJP’s) massive victory; but also because for the first time in independent India, there arose the figure of a political strategist who wasn’t part of the avuncular establishment. And Prashant Kishor is being seen as the go-to consultant for politicians of all stripes: He helped engineer Nitish Kumar’s victory in the Bihar elections last year.

**CEO, PayTM

Age: 38

Born in: Aligarh, UP**

If you’re looking for a cautionary tale designed to encourage students to stay in class, Vijay Shekhar Sharma isn’t it. The founder of revolutionary mobile payment platform Paytm insists skipping lectures to hang out in the computer lab was the first step to building the $3 billion empire he’s currently sitting atop. Turning adversity into game-changing business ideas is Sharma’s specialty. He had to teach himself English to get a college degree. And not being allowed to make an online donation via his phone is what sparked the idea of Paytm, which claimed 100 million users last year.

**Founder, Spice PR

Born in: Delhi

Age: 37**

In the early Noughties when film PR was finding its feet, Spice PR launched and propelled a movement that has made marketing an integral part of the business. Over 12 years, founder Prabhat Choudhary has turned the art of connecting with audiences into a science. He is now responsible (in part) for the success of every second A-list film that releases in Bollywood, and for transforming the career trajectory of actors like Deepika Padukone, once known only as a pretty model. Last year, IIM Bangalore even included a case study of the firm in its syllabus. Spice has also inadvertently developed a specialty: It’s become a go-to helpline for those in need of a brand re-imagining.

**CEO, JSW Sports and COO, Bengaluru FC

Age: 36

Born in: Mumbai**

When Bengaluru FC won their second I-League Football championship this year, it was in no small part thanks to the team’s COO, Mustafa Ghouse. The former tennis player, who represented India in the Davis Cup and won a bronze medal at the Asian Games, has been instrumental in setting up and moulding the team since its inception in the League in 2013.

**Co-founder, Atmantan

Age: 39

Born in: Delhi**

Wellness and motorsport have little in common, unless you’re Nikhil Kapur, the fitness-obsessed co-founder of 2016’s mecca of healthy living, three hours from Mumbai. Modelled on the award-winning Chiva-Som in Thailand, Kapur says the 40- acre property set amid the hills of the Sahyadris “is a pit stop for life”. Unlike other luxury retreats, where you might spend a substantial sum of money to have your WiFi cut off and a massage or two, at Atmantan the emphasis is on “removing the fluff associated with wellness” and delivering scientific, quantifiable results.

**Founder and President at SaveLIFE foundation

Age: 36

Born in: Kanpur, Uttar pradesh**

India’s roads are notoriously unsafe. In the eight years since Tewari set up the SaveLIFE Foundation to improve road safety as well as emergency care for accident victims, its impact has been tremendous. So far 1,50,000 people have been rushed to hospitals by a network of cops and volunteers trained under the NGO’s award-winning programme. What’s more: the Ashoka Fellow’s successful lobbying helped influence a historic Supreme Court judgement – passed in March this year – that provides legal protection to Good Samaritans, bystanders who aid accident victims.

**President & Whole- Time Director, IndiGo

Age: 40

Born in: Kolkata**

An IPO does two things to the president of a company: overnight it gives him a war chest, but it also leaves him open to scrutiny by millions of shareholders, who monitor his every twitch. But Ghosh isn’t sweating it. Hours after India’s largest IPO in three years last October, IndiGo parent company InterGlobe Avation’s shares were oversubscribed. But Ghosh has kept up the heat: IndiGo posted its eighth consecutive year of profits (in its ten-year history), became the largest domestic airline by market share in India and has a firm order for 426 Airbus A320Neo aircraft, which will quadruple the airline’s fleet strength from the current 108 aircraft in service.

**CEO, Cerana beverages

Age: 35

Born in: Delhi**

Bira 91’s success story would make an interesting case study in a marketing textbook. The beer is made with hops from Belgium, France and the Himalayas, brewed in several contractual breweries – including one in Belgium – and is bottled in Gurgaon. Since it launched last year, the brand’s gone viral, with about 30,000 cases selling every month. Founder Ankur Jain, who sold his healthcare information startup in 2007, claims he achieved this without spending a rupee on traditional marketing: Instead he launched it slowly by making it available in popular bars, priced between a Heineken and a Corona.

**Co-founder, Doolally Taprooms

Age: 39

Born in: Bhavnagar, Gujarat**

Getting the first microbrewery licence in independent India’s history, by catalysing an alteration to the archaic laws of this country, must take a certain kind of doggedness. Suketu Talekar has plenty of it.

Which is how he left his job “selling detergent” for Proctor & Gamble in Singapore and opened a microbrewery in Pune seven years ago that became a must-do for any discerning punter visiting the city. He’s since opened outlets in Mumbai, which required some more laws to be amended, and is now in the process of setting up a brewery near Khopoli and retailing his beer – considered among the best in the country – in bottles in 10 new stores across Mumbai and Pune within 24 months. “India is now like the early years of the craft beer renaissance in America. It’s a great time to be doing what I do.”