Harsh Jain, Culture Enforcement Officer (CEO) and Co-founder of Dream11 is the recipient of the IMPACT Person of the Year (IPOY) 2022 Award, instituted by the exchange4media Group to recognize excellence in the Advertising, Media and Marketing domain. He has been awarded this title for building India’s largest sports technology company catering to more than 200 million users. Dream11 is India’s first gaming company to enter the unicorn club. Jain successfully clubbed his fondness for sports, gaming, and technology to shape the popular sports tech company.
After getting rejected by some 150-odd venture capitalists, Dream11 has gone on to touch the Rs 65000 cr. mark with the support of top investors such as RedBird Capital Partners, Tiger Global Management, and Falcon Edge India, among others. Jain, who received his MBA from the prestigious Columbia Business School in New York, is a believer in retention over acquisition and strives to keep both his stakeholders and the workforce satisfied. Jain is actively involved in philanthropy as well through the Dream Sports Foundation, where the focus is on serving the Indian sports ecosystem. His NGO Raksha Foundation which he runs along with his wife Rachana, helps children and animals in need.
Shri Ashish Shelar, President, the Mumbai BJP wing and BCCI Treasurer, who is a two-term MLA from Bandra and has served as school education and sports minister in the Devendra Fadnavis government in 2019, was the Chief Guest for the event. During his keynote address, he said, “When I heard the winner’s name, which I am not supposed to declare (yet), I made my mind doubly sure that I must be present for the event. The IMPACT Person of the Year 2022 goes to the person who has made an impact. I congratulate the winner, I compliment the organisers, and I appreciate the efforts taken by all stakeholders.”
Speaking at the event, Dr. Annurag Batra, Co-founder, exchange4media Group said, “When you look at the past winners of the IMPACT Person of the Year award, they are illustrious names. Just to give you an example of the last two years – we have had Mr. Sanjiv Mehta who was at that time the Chairman and Managing Director of Hindustan Unilever, and the year before we had Mr. Sanjiv Puri the Chairman of ITC Limited. This year’s winner is in the same mould but is also not in the same mould. You will know when you find out the name.”
Speaking of Harsh Jain’s passion for work, Avinash Pandey, CEO, ABP Network said, “So there is a maxim that all of us have heard many times, but not many of us have had the good fortune to have lived – ‘make your passion your work, and not the work your passion.’ Today I am standing on the stage with someone who exemplifies this old saying to its truest.”
Harsh Jain who is the youngest ever recipient of the award was present with his family, and engaged in a fireside chat with Dr. Batra. During his acceptance speech he said, “The list of nominees was pretty intimidating, and I am glad I made the cut. So, thank you to the jury. The list of people who have won this award in the past is even more intimidating, so we’ve got a long way to prove that we are worth giving this award to. It’s been an amazing fifteen years of running Dream11 and Dream Sports. I would like to quote Isaac Newton who had said, ‘I only look farther than others because I stand on the shoulders of giants. I am very fortunate to have so many giants in my life whose shoulders I can stand on. The way we have built Dream11 and Dream Sports, I can consider myself a sports coach. We try to emulate the world’s best sports teams when thinking about our culture, what we want to do and how we want to build it.”
In its 18th edition, IPOY 2022 had the following nominees – Aman Gupta, Co-founder & CMO, Boat Lifestyle; Darpan Sanghvi, Founder and CEO, Good Glamm Group; Varun Alagh, Co-founder and CEO, and Ghazal Alagh, Co-founder and CIO, Mamaearth; Harsh Jain, Co-founder and CEO, Dream 11; Harsh Mariwala, Chairman, Marico Limited; Mohit Burman, Chairman, Dabur Limited; Nisaba Godrej, Executive Director, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd.; Peyush Bansal, Co-founder & CEO, Lenskart; R.S. Agarwal, Co-founder & Chairman Emeritus, and R.S. Goenka, Co-founder & Non-Executive Chairman, Emami Ltd.; Sanket Ray, President, India and Southwest Asia, The Coca-Cola Company and Vineeta Singh and Kaushik Mukherjee, Co-founders, Sugar Cosmetics.
Jain is now part of an elite group of IPOY winners, names that inspire confidence and garner respect in the fields of advertising, media, and marketing. Past winners include, include Sanjiv Mehta, then Chairman, HUL; Sanjiv Puri, Chairman and MD, ITC Limited; Rajan Anandan, then MD, Google India; Baba Ramdev of Patanjali Ayurved; Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder and CEO of Paytm; Arnab Goswami, then President & Editor-in-Chief, Times Now and ET Now; Punit Goenka, MD & CEO, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd; Vineet Jain, MD, Times Group; Ambika Soni, then Minister for Information & Broadcasting; Agnello Dias, Founder, Taproot India; Haresh Chawla, then Group CEO, Network18 and Viacom18; Uday Shankar, then CEO, Star India; Raghav Bahl, Founder, Network18; and Rajdeep Sardesai, then Editor-in-Chief, CNN-IBN.
