The Indian School of Business (ISB) hosted top business leaders at the second edition of its annual leadership summit - Pinnacle, at its Mohali campus. Pinnacle, is a confluence of distinguished leaders from the world of business, academia and government with this year’s theme being - Leadership at the Crossroads.
 
Lakshmi Narayanan, Vice-Chairman, Cognizant Technology Solutions, delivered the keynote address. Narayanan identified three constants - Challenges, Innovation and Learning, for managing change in the face of uncertainty.
 
This was followed by a panel discussion. The panel represented diverse industry leaders such as Parag Saigaonkar, Principal, Deloitte Consulting, Vibha Paul Rishi, Executive Director, Max Healthcare and Krishnan Chatterjee, Senior Vice President, HCL Technologies. The session was moderated by Jyoti Kamal, Senior Editor, Network 18. The panel shared varied thoughts on leadership drawing insights from their own experiences and discussed at length about leadership in organisations. Following this, there were discussions on the role of leadership in the face of uncertainty in the context of four focus areas including infrastructure development, emerging markets, marketing and strategy and financial services.
 
Ramesh Inder Singh, IAS (Retd.), Chief Information Commissioner, Punjab State Information Commission, the former Chief Secretary of Punjab, presided over the closing ceremonies. A Padma Shree in 1986 for his distinguished public service, Singh spoke about his leadership style. He shared his experience on how leadership styles help bureaucrats like him deal with numerous challenges they encounter during their service. Ramesh Inder Singh also spoke about Right to Information Act and highlighted the role of information transparency for successful leadership.
 
This day of energetic exchange of ideas at Pinnacle reinforced the critical role that innovation and leadership will play in determining whether businesses and nations will emerge stronger as a result of the impending wave of change.