NEW DELHI: Shankar Mohan Ram from Mumbai, and Nathalie Mallari from the Philippines have won the WNS Idol 6, an annual solo singing competition that brings together the most talented singers of WNS across the globe to perform live at the global grand finale.

Organised by WNS (Holdings) Limited, a leading provider of global Business Process Management (BPM) services, the finale in the sixth edition had eight Indians among the twelve finalists.

Over 1,000 employees registered to be the global singing sensation of WNS. The competition was spread out over a month and had preliminary auditions, zonal rounds culminating into a global grand finale that was held at Gurgaon this week.

The Grand Finale was attended by 900+ employees, including WNS senior leadership. Final contestants enthralled the audience by singing varied compositions in English, Hindi and their native languages.

Famous sitar maestro Fateh Ali Khan and renowned singer Manisha Chakravarty were the judges at the grand finale.

“WNS Idol is a platform that encourages creativity, competitive spirit and bonhomie amongst the employees. We are extremely delighted to receive an overwhelming response from employees to this in-house competition. Being one of the fastest growing global companies spread across 12 countries with nearly 30,000 employees, initiatives likes WNS Idol cut across cultural barriers and bind all the employees together in one spirit. Outperformance is our mission in what we deliver to our clients, but competitions like IDOL, bring out outperformance and excellence of a different kind,” said WNS Group CEO Keshav R. Murugesh.

The Grand Finale had two rounds: Round One saw 12 finalists singing compositions of their choice, in English or Hindi. The judges chose six out of the 12 contestants to compete in Round Two, which was the deciding round.

Speaking at the occasion, Fateh Ali Khan said “I am astonished at the understanding of the music notes and the quality of singing presented by the participants. In my opinion all of them are winners. To come this far is a feat in itself. Congratulations to all the participants.”

“I applaud the effort that WNS has put in towards organising a competition of this stature for their employees. It is a marvel in itself. The participation both by the contestants and the audience was very overwhelming and heartening. It was a fantastic show and I truly enjoyed being part of WNS Idol 6,” added Chakravarty.

The final 12 contestants included participants from Poland, The Philippines, South Africa and Sri Lanka besides India.

From WNS India locations, five were in the Hindi category and three in the English category. These eight Indian contestants were from Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and Bengaluru.