By Our Bureau
Copyright thehindubusinessline
Come Friday, September 26, the seventh edition of businessline Changemaker Awards 2025 will celebrate the unsung heroes amongst us, those who, through their actions and deeds, have deeply influenced change in society, communities, mindsets or in physical spaces to make the world a better place to live in.
The Chief Guest for the event, to be held in Mumbai, is Hardeep Singh Puri, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas.
Nominations window
The entire process for reaching the finale of the seventh edition of the businessline Changemaker Awards was started on May 9, when the nominations window was opened.
When it closed at the midnight of June 30, 1,807 nominations were received across five categories — Changemaker of the Year, Young Changemaker, Changemaker – Digital Transformation, Changemaker – Social Transformation, and Changemaker — Financial transformation.
For the sixth category, Iconic Changemaker, nominees were chosen by the businessline team and knowledge partners, Deloitte and Ashoka Innovators for the Public, after a thorough discussion.
Exemplary work
In addition, businessline’s Chairperson’s Award goes to an entity that is carrying on exemplary work in education. The nominees were vetted by bl’s validation partner, Niiti Consulting.
Six editions of the awards have been held since 2018, the year The Hindu businessline stepped into its 25th year of publishing. The 2021 edition could not be held due to the Covid pandemic.
The winners in each category were selected by an eminent jury at a meeting held in Chennai. The jury this year was chaired by Former Governor of RBI, D Subbarao, and the other jury members were Harish Bhat, former Brand Custodian, Tata Sons; A Balasubramanian, MD & CEO, Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund AMC; Lakshmi Venu, Vice Chairman, TAFE; NS Nappinai, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court; Chetna Gala Sinha, Chairperson, Mann Deshi Mahila Bank; and J Radhakrishnan, Chairman & MD, Tamil Nadu Generation & Distribution Corporation.
Last year, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman gave away the awards, the second time she has done so in the past six years. The past winners include those such as Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT Madras Research Park, Arunachalam Muruganandam aka the Padman, Bezwada Wilson, who campaigned against manual scavenging and Safeena Husain of Educate Girls, the latter two both Magsaysay Awardees.
Last year, chess grandmaster and world champion D Gukesh, was awarded the Young Changemaker Award while organisations such as the RBI, ICF, Amul and NPCI, to name just a few, were awarded as well.
The presenting partner for the event is SASTRA Deemed University and the event is co-powered by State Bank of India (SBI). Associate Partners are LIC (Life Insurance Corporation of India), Bank of Baroda, The Jammu & Kashmir Bank Ltd, NTPC Ltd, GAIL (India) Ltd, ICFAI Business School (IBS), Oil India Ltd, Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL).
The State Partner is Government of Sikkim; Luxury Watch Partner is Citizen; Education Partner is SSVM Institutions and Home Appliance Partner is Ultra.
The event can be watched live by scanning the QR code or on: https://thbl.news/BLCM2025LS
Published on September 24, 2025
