A DIRECTORY OF DIRECTORS If a company is a body, the board would be its brain. The founding fathers of corporate structure have envisaged the directors who populate the board to perform several strategic, leadership and fiduciary duties, both individually and collectively. Business Standard looks at the brains of Corporate India (top 100 firms by market cap) through some critical numbers COMPANIES WITH MOST DIRECTORS COMPANIES WITH LEAST NUMBER OF Company No. of directors INDEPENDENT DIRECTORS (ID) Jaiprakash Associates 20 Company % of directors Larsen & Toubro 17 Power Grid Corporation of India 25 NTPC 17 Container Corporation of India 30 17 Corporation 33 Adani Enterprises 40 COMPANIES WITH LEAST Corporation 40 NUMBER OF DIRECTORS Bharat Heavy Electricals 43 Company No. of directors Union 45 IDBI Bank 6 Company 46 Reliance Capital 6 NTPC 47 Zee Entertainment Enterprises 6 Recommended percentage of ID: 50% Reliance Communications 5 Reliance Power 5 LONGEST-SERVING INDEPENDENT Recommended board size: 7 to 16 directors DIRECTORS As of FY12 ending for the respective companies Independent Tenure Company director (years) INDEPENDENT DIRECTORS WITH MOST India B H Reporter 50 NUMBER OF DIRECTORSHIPS Bhaskar Mitter 46 Company* Independent No. of outside BASF India R A Shah 44 director directorships Zuari Industries D B Engineer 42 Deepak S Parekh 16 HDFC Keshub Mahindra 35 Suresh N Talwar 15 Colgate Palmolive J K Setna 34 S Ramadorai 14 Nusli Nusli N Wadia 33 Colgate Palmolive R A Shah 14 C M Maniar 30 HDFC B S Mehta 14 Dr H R Manchanda 29 Hindalco C M Maniar 14 Ambuja Cements M L Bhakta 27 Ambuja Cements Nasser Munjee 13 Titan Industries T K Balaji 26 Ambuja Cements Shailesh Haribhakti 13 Cipla Ramesh Shroff 25 ITC Sunil Behari Mathur 13 M L Apte 25 ACC Naresh Chandra 11 Cipla V C Kotwal 23 Hero MotoCorp Analjit Singh 11 Yogendra P Trivedi 20 Recommended maximum directorship: 10 nos. Recommended maximum tenure: 9 years * Name is representative Compiled by N Sundaresha Subramanian; Source: Ingovern research