India Risk Management Awards Season 12: Celebrating excellence in a new era of risk
In this new landscape, resilience is no longer measured by how quickly organisations recover from disruption, but by how effectively they anticipate it.
For over a decade, the India Risk Management Awards (IRMA), presented by ICICI Lombard and CNBC-TV18, has celebrated organisations that have demonstrated excellence in managing uncertainty while creating a platform for industry leaders to exchange ideas and shape the future of risk management.
In its 12th edition, IRMA continues to serve as a platform that recognises excellence in risk management while bringing together industry leaders to shape conversations around the future of enterprise resilience. This season also marks a significant milestone for ICICI Lombard as it celebrates 25 years of helping businesses build resilience through innovative risk solutions and strategic partnerships.
A Theme That Reflects the Times
The theme for IRMA Season 12, “AI in a Fragmented World: Strategy & the New Tech Order”, couldn’t be more relevant.
Artificial intelligence is no longer simply enabling business transformation. It is reshaping competitive advantage, influencing national strategies, redefining governance and changing how organisations identify, evaluate and respond to risk.
The challenge for businesses today is no longer whether to adopt AI. It is how to harness it responsibly while balancing innovation with governance, resilience and long-term strategic priorities. That challenge formed the foundation of every conversation throughout Season 12.
Building the Conversation
The India Risk Management Awards have never been only about recognising achievements at the end of the journey. Equally important is creating opportunities for organisations to learn from one another, exchange perspectives and collectively redefine what excellence in risk management looks like.
Season 12 extended beyond the awards platform through Risk Masterclasses and panel discussions held in Mumbai and Delhi, bringing together some of India’s leading voices from insurance, technology, infrastructure, manufacturing, renewable energy and financial services.
The conversations featured Anand Singhi, Chief – Corporate, International, Bancassurance (KRG) & Government Business, ICICI Lombard; Gaurav Arora, Chief – Commercial Lines & Motor (Underwriting & Claims), ICICI Lombard; Anoop Pandhi, Vice President, Corporate Solutions Group, ICICI Lombard; Gaurav Jagavkar, Principal Architect, Google Cloud; Sudharsan Narasimhan, Head – Corporate Insurance, Larsen & Toubro; Manish Lunia, Co-Founder, FlexiLoans.com; and Akhilesh Purohit, Head – Corporate Risk & Insurance, ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India, alongside Chirag Bhojani, Head – Digital Business, ICICI Lombard; Deepak Arora, Vice President, Corporate Solutions Group, ICICI Lombard; Avishek Chattopadhyay, CVP & CIO, HCLTech; Jayesh Gupta, Head of AI, Cars24; Parthasarathy Srinivasan, Deputy CFO, ReNew; and Neeraj Kanagat, Senior Vice President – Corporate Finance, Jindal Saw.
While the speakers represented diverse industries, a common narrative emerged. As Anoop Pandhi observed in his opening remarks, organisations today must build resilient frameworks capable of thriving in an increasingly dynamic and uncertain business environment, while Anand Singhi reflected on ICICI Lombard’s own journey from being a risk carrier to becoming a long-term risk partner, underpinned by technology, customer-centricity and strong governance.
The discussions then shifted from strategy to execution. Gaurav Jagavkar highlighted how enterprise AI is making sophisticated technologies accessible across organisations while reinforcing the importance of secure, enterprise-grade adoption. Sharing a real-world perspective, Sudharsan Narasimhan explained how AI enabled Larsen & Toubro to monitor people, assets and supply chains in real time during periods of geopolitical uncertainty, demonstrating how predictive intelligence is transforming operational resilience.
From the insurance perspective, Gaurav Arora illustrated how artificial intelligence is helping underwriters move from manually analysing vast amounts of information to making faster, more consistent decisions, significantly reducing claims processing timelines. Manish Lunia expanded on this by showing how financial institutions are transforming unstructured customer interactions into intelligent lending decisions while maintaining human oversight to minimise model risks.
Perhaps one of the most compelling observations came from Akhilesh Purohit, who likened data not to oil, but to iron ore – valuable only when refined into actionable intelligence. His remarks echoed a broader consensus that AI’s true value lies not in the volume of data organisations possess, but in their ability to convert it into meaningful business decisions.
The Delhi Masterclass extended these conversations into the boardroom. Deepak Arora reinforced that recognising excellence must go hand in hand with creating platforms for industry dialogue, while Avishek Chattopadhyay observed how enterprises have rapidly evolved from measuring AI success through pilots and experimentation to focusing on measurable business value and secure, enterprise-scale adoption.
That shift was further illustrated by Jayesh Gupta, who spoke about building AI-native organisations, and Parthasarathy Srinivasan, who explained how AI is enabling businesses to make faster, forward-looking decisions amid volatile geopolitical and economic conditions. Offering a longer historical perspective, Neeraj Kanagat reflected on how enterprise risk management has evolved over decades – from traditional insurance-based protection to comprehensive, intelligence-led risk frameworks. Complementing this, Chirag Bhojani highlighted how the insurance industry itself is reinventing the way it interprets data, moving beyond spreadsheets to leverage images, documents and conversations as critical inputs for risk assessment.
Taken together, the discussions revealed an industry moving beyond the question of whether AI should be adopted. The focus has now shifted to how organisations can govern it responsibly, transform data into intelligence, anticipate risks before they emerge and build resilience as a strategic advantage. It is this evolution in thinking that lies at the heart of IRMA Season 12.
A Rigorous Framework for Excellence
One of the defining strengths of the India Risk Management Awards has always been the integrity of its evaluation framework. With PwC serving as the Process Partner, the awards follow a structured and independent assessment process overseen by an eminent jury comprising distinguished leaders from industry and academia.
Their collective expertise ensures that excellence is recognised through transparent evaluation, strategic insight and real-world business impact, reinforcing the credibility that IRMA has built over the past twelve seasons.
Celebrating Excellence
Over the past several months, IRMA has brought together diverse voices to explore how businesses can thrive in an increasingly uncertain world. Through thought-provoking conversations, industry dialogue, rigorous evaluation and the celebration of excellence, the platform has continued to strengthen India’s risk management ecosystem while encouraging organisations to think differently about resilience.
As artificial intelligence reshapes industries and geopolitical realities continue to redefine business priorities, one thing has become increasingly clear – the organisations that succeed tomorrow will not simply be those that manage risk effectively; they will be those that make resilience a core strategic advantage.
By bringing together industry leaders, encouraging meaningful dialogue and recognising excellence in risk management, the India Risk Management Awards Season 12 continues to strengthen India’s risk management ecosystem while inspiring organisations to build more resilient, responsible and future-ready enterprises.
Watch Mumbai Masterclass episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfmQ3QroHcQ
Watch Delhi Masterclass episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6X6HU0_gc0
Source: www.cnbctv18.com