CEO Financial News

The boss of Australia’s second-largest pubs group, Australian Venue Co, says bookings for Christmas functions are up 40 per cent on this time a year ago as households and businesses seek out better value alternatives to restaurants, keeping the economy on track for a soft landing.

NEW DELHI : India is in talks with a number of African countries, including Namibia, Mozambique and Kenya, to help develop its Unified Payment Interface (UPI) and to conclude commercial partnerships between payments platforms, according to persons aware of the matter. This push comes after Ritesh Shukla, International CEO of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which developed UPI, stated that the number of countries where UPI is live will double in the next 12-18 months. “There are many countries in the world which have similar problems we had before the advent of UPI.

NEW DELHI : The government set a minimum export price (MEP) of $1,200 a tonne on basmati rice shipments in a move aimed at reining in domestic prices ahead of elections in key states. The move came a day after it imposed a 20% duty on non-basmati parboiled rice exports, effective immediately. The measures are aimed at ensuring rice prices remain under control after paddy production came under a cloud because of excess rainfall in Punjab and Haryana, and deficient rains in the eastern region.

Elon Musk, the chief of Tesla, Space X, and the owner of ‘X’ (formerly Twitter), is impressed with the growing number of Indian-origin CEOs. In a list published by World of Statistics, it was made evident that there has been a significant rise in Indian-origin people at the topmost position. The list showed that many companies all over the world are now led by Indian-origin CEO.

India, now the world's most populous nation as of 2023, is set to achieve a real GDP growth of around 6% by the end of the year. This marks the third consecutive year of impressive growth among major economies.

Priyank Kharge on Sunday discussed rolling out free public wifi zones in Bengaluru. “We plan to have about 5,000 public hotspots in Bengaluru,” Kharge told ET, saying it was a project he initiated as IT/BT Minister over five years ago, but was still stuck where it was. “We will start talking to telecom service as well as broadband service providers,” the IT/BT Minister said, adding that the government planned to roll it out by December. The long pending project is part of the Digital Karnataka goal, aiming to provide wifi access to everyone. With no investment from the government, the earlier plan was to give data free for the first 30 minutes or an hour and charge for use beyond that. In November 2019, the BBMP and ACT Fibernet signed an MoU to make public wifi available in nine months, but it remains a non-starter.

generative technology and may consider raising funds early next year to support expansion plans. Ramineni, during his India visit spoke to PTI about the rapid growth in AI and startups in India and the Silicon Valley.

World of Statistics posted a list of companies that have Indian-origin people at the topmost position which left Tesla Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Elon Musk impressed. On its social media account, X (formerly known as Twitter), the World of Statistics listed 21 companies that have Indian-origin CEOs. This list includes Alphabet: Sundar Pichai, World Bank Group: Ajay Banga, Micron Technology: Sanjay Mehrotra, Adobe: Shantanu Narayen and many more. Recating on the post, Musk on his micro-blogging account said, «Impressive». Recently, Indian-origin Vaibhav Taneja became the new Tesla Chief Financial Officer after Zachary Kirkhorn stepped down from his position. Taking to his LinkedIn account, Kirkhorn informed that after being part of the company for 13 years, he has left the position.

In some of these cases, highly qualified people are choosing freelancing or gigs as a way of working. They do it as they see several advantages like flexibility, and possibility of greater income and work-life balance.

Tata Steel plans to scale up the usage of hydrogen in the steel making process after the successful completion of the pilot project at its Jamshedpur plant, in Jharkhand, the company's CEO and MD T V Narendran said. In April 2023, Tata Steel commenced the first of its kind experiment injecting hydrogen gas using 40 per cent of the injection systems in E-blast furnace at its steel plant in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand. «It was very successful, we will scale it up, But eventually we need to have green hydrogen available in Eastern India that will determine how it can be used,» Narendran told PTI in reply to a question on the results of the trials. However, he did not tell the quantum in which the company plans to increase the usage of hydrogen. Injection of hydrogen in blast furnaces helps reduce consumption of coal leading to reduction in carbon footprint.

Elon Musk is impressed at the way Indian-origin people have taken over as CEOs of most of the top tech companies, as well as some of the non-tech organisations, and the list is only growing. By holding top positions, the Indian-origin people are earning millions of dollars which puts them among the highest paid CEOs in the US. When the World of Statistics posted on X (formerly Twitter) the list of Indian-origin people at top companies, Musk reacted late on Saturday: «Impressive». His followers reacted, saying «Indians are some of the hardest working people». India is even the «CEO of Moon's South Pole,» a Musk follower chuckled, after the country successfully landed its Chandrayaan-3 Moon mission. Currently, Sanjay Mehrotra is the CEO of Micron Technology; Shantanu Narayen is the CEO of Adobe; Satya Nadella is Chairman and CEO of Microsoft; Sunder Pichai is the CEO of Alphabet and Google; Jay Chaudhry is the CEO of Zscaler which is a cloud security company; Arvind Krishna is the CEO of IBM; Neal Mohan is the CEO of YouTube; and George Kurian is the CEO of NetApp, among the top tech giants. Leena Nair broke all barriers by becoming the first ever Indian-origin global CEO of French luxury fashion house, Chanel.

Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (PoSH) Act, said top law firms advising corporates on such cases and committee members. This is also contributing to a higher number of cases being lodged with internal committees of companies that are not prima facie cases of sexual harassment, the experts said. A lack of awareness on redressal mechanisms for general grievances in some companies, and a feeling among many employees that since PoSH is a women-centric and robust workplace law their cases will find a fair hearing and redressal if filed under it, is leading to internal committees and lawyers grappling with what falls under sexual harassment. This year, law firm Khaitan & Co saw a significant increase in the internal committees of several companies seeking legal advice for sexual harassment complaints. About 40-50% of these complaints may not come under the purview of sexual harassment in the absence of prima facie case of sexual harassment being made out, said Anshul Prakash, partner, employment labour and benefits at Khaitan & Co. «There is still confusion among some people — employees and internal committee members — about what comes under PoSH.

Queensland Energy Minister Mick de Brenni says he has full confidence in the CS Energy board despite taxpayers remaining in the dark over the cause of the catastrophic failure of the state-owned firm’s Callide C coal-fired power station more than two years ago.

Can and bottle maker Orora is closing in on the acquisition of an offshore glass business, and has begun early preparations for a $1 billion-plus equity raising to bankroll the deal.

Former CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall is joining the board of mining giant and aspiring green hydrogen producer Fortescue Metals Group, hailing its founder Andrew Forrest as Australia’s greatest entrepreneur.

India is a laboratory for global good and carries a reservoir of talent, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Saturday. Addressing the B20 Summit India on the theme «Aligning Education to Emerging Imperatives», Pradhan said education is the mothership that will drive all growth. «India is a laboratory for global good which comes from our civilisational values of Vasudhaiv Kutumbukam… India's aspirations are for achieving global good and wellbeing.

More than 98 per cent of India’s senior citizen population remains devoid of health insurance coverage amid the increasing cost of healthcare services, according to a recent survey by leading insurtech platform Plum. The need for comprehensive health coverage for senior citizens has become more apparent, however, the penetration continues to be a challenge. According to census reports, India has 1,380 lakh elderly citizens and is further expected to increase by around 560 lakh by 2031.

Dating apps are testing the limits of how much users will pay in their quest for love. Match Group, which owns a fleet of dating apps, recently added a plan to Hinge with a monthly rate around $50, up from its previous high of $35, and is examining user interest in a plan for Tinder nearing $500 a month. Bumble is considering a tier above its current $60-a-month plan, while gay dating app Grindr plans to widen its subscriptions with more premium offerings.

Reliance Industries is trying to get EV charging infrastructure at their retail outlets. At present, the joint venture has over 1,620 retail outlets.

Cuemath has laid off 100 more employees amid a challenging macroeconomic environment for edtech companies, the media reported on Saturday.Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India) backs the startup. «Unfortunately, our revenue and cost trajectories are still divergent from expectations, and our problems are compounded by the bad macro situation around capital availability, particularly for edtech,» Cuemath's Founder and CEO, Manan Khurma, told employees in an email dated August 25, which is seen by Moneycontrol. «This means that we will have to move to a leaner team structure, in which some roles will get redundant. That exercise is being carried out today,» he added. In May, the company had laid off about 100 employees to improve efficiencies amid a worsening global landscape for K-12 edtech. «Post the May8 exits, I had said that hopefully the company will not need to take a similar action again.

Punit Renjen, deputy chairperson-supervisory board, SAP SE. Speaking at a B20 panel on Saturday, Renjen said businesses need to address the climate question as that is what their employees increasingly want; this is what underpinned Deloitte’s work on ESG while he was heading it. “If I want to hire the very best individuals and I want to retain them, I must have a critical response to that question,” he said. Speaking at the same event, Bernard Looney, CEO of BP, said ESG serves both moral and business good.