PTI

New Delhi, Dec 16 (mb): India may still be a novice in the global corporate battlefield but professionals and entrepreneurs born in the country proved their mettle across the world in varied business sectors during the year 2007.

The year was fabulous for new entrants such as Vikram Pandit and Shantanu Narayen as well as existing members like Lakshmi Mittal, Arun Sarin and Indra Nooyi in the elite club of India-born or Non-Resident Indians running multinational empires. But the next year will be as challenging for these global Indians as this year has been rewarding.
   
Nagpur-born Pandit, who was named the CEO of world's largest financial services conglomerate Citigroup last week, needs to bring his bank out of the subprime mess that has already cost it more than 11 billion dollars.
   
Pandit's phenomenal rise up the ladder is evident from the fact that he joined Citigroup only in May this year when Citigroup acquired his hedge fund. The expectations are even higher as he beat out names like US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and is considered a novice in retail banking, a key business area for Citigroup, though he has made a name as an investment banker in Morgan Stanley and at Citigroup itself.
   
The same holds true for Sarin, who heads the world's largest mobile firm by revenue. Vodafone took a 11-billion dollar bet earlier this year for making inroads into his birth country with acquisition of controlling stake in Hutch-Essar.

Vodafone faces challenging times in the Indian market with established rivals like Bharti Airtel putting a tough competition and Anil Ambani group's Reliance Communications, which was also eying Hutch-Essar, emerging as a tougher rival after the government's new norms on spectrum allocation went in its favour.