Chairman of GTL Limited, Manoj Tirodkar

Genius lies in recognising the need of the hour. Sensing early the arrival of the telecom era in India, Mr. Manoj Tirodkar worked earnestly in this direction. With GTL making waves in the telecommunication tower market, he is today widely recognized for his efforts towards creating an efficient and environmnent-friendly telecom industry.

A VISIONARY

At a time when telecom had just arrived in India in a massive way and everyone thought that it would take the country as a whirlwind, there were few in the field who had a perfect vision in terms of what needed to be done in order to proliferate here. Manoj G Tirodkar was one of those few Indians who started working earnestly in this entire new arena and soon established themselves . The world at large  had to take cognisance of the presence of his company GTL Limited. It was wiling to share the delight of working with the visionary and his company. He is one of the few first generation entrepreneurs who has made it to  the top. Based on the net–worth listing of Forbes, he was placed at the 74^th position in India then.

PROFESSION

GTL Limited, the flagship company of Global Group, was established by Manoj Tirodkar in 1987. Since then, it has never looked back, thanks to the strong technical expertise and exemplary business acumen of its founder chairman. The growth was phenomenal and the company was able to establish GTL operations in over 40 countries.

While serving as the Chairman of GTL Limited, Manoj Tirodkar is also connected with various international organizations in different countries. As a founder of Global Group he is a pioneer in conceptualizing new and innovative business models and is well known in global business circles for this ability. Manoj Tirodkar is widely recognized for his relentless constructive efforts to create an environment-friendly and efficient telecom industry and for championing the cause of shared telecom infrastructure model.  Under Tirodkar’s unique leadership, Global Group has around 28000 towers, revenue strength of $500 million, and total assets to the tune of over $3 billion.  It employs more than 35,000 professionals of 22 nationalities and has operations across 8 countries. It has partnered with technology leaders such a Qualcomm, Ericson , Alcatel-Lucent , Nokia Siemens Networks, Huawei, ZTE, etc, to offer network services across the world.

AWARDS AND ACCOLADES

In 1996, Manoj Tirodkar was adjudged the Telecom Man of the year.  Manoj Tirodkar was also the first Indian winner of World Young Business Achiever Award (2000) from Worldcom Group.  Manoj Tirodkar also won the CII Young Entrepreneurs Trophy 2001 and National Level Entrepreneur Award 2006 from the Jagtik Marathi Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He was also conferred with the HR Excellence Award for “ CEO with HR Orientation” at the HRD Congress at Bangalore in 2007.

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Corporate Social Responsibility has always been at the heart of this truly Global Indian.  He supports a number of causes through the Global Foundation and takes keen interest in educating children in rural India , improving their health and helping the cause of visually challenged.  The humanitarian causes for which the funds are used have been recognized through many awards in CSR that the Global Group has received. One of the major international awards he received was for “Corporate Governance – Business for Social Responsibility 2006” from the Bombay Stock Exchange and Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), a non profit business association in San Francisco. GTL was selected by the National Association for the Blind (NAB), India, to receive the 12^th Piloo Dorab Khambatta Memorial Award for the year 2006 under the category “Best Employer of the Blind”.