A glittering evening with star performers: Business Today’s 19th edition of Most Powerful Women in Business event on March 29

As Women’s History Month of March draws to a close, it is time for Business Today’s much-awaited 19^th edition of the Most Powerful Women in Business event on March 29.  

Mumbai’s St Regis Hotel will witness 55 finest women achievers in business being felicitated this year by chief guest Smriti Irani, Union Minister of Women & Child Development and Minister of Minority Affairs, after an evening of deliberations and discussions about the challenges and opportunities for women in the world of work.  

Started way back in 2003, Business Today was the first magazine to champion this glittering annual list of star women achievers in India. The event is a much-anticipated accompaniment to the special magazine issue of the same name which came out a few weeks ago.  

Zia Mody, Co–founder & Managing Partner, AZB & Partners, Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson and CEO, Salesforce, India, Nandita Das, Film Maker & Actor and several other eminent forces to reckon with from the fields of business, sports and entertainment will all be in attendance. 

The evening kicks off at 4 pm with Tarun Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor of Harvard Business School, talking about ‘Leadership’s Female Quotient’. The agenda-setting discussion will open the floor for a session titled ‘Trailblazers in Sport’ where India’s top women cricketers bring their viewpoints about the battles on and off the sports field.   

One of the key highlights of the evening will see Roshni Nadar Malhotra, who is the CEO of HCL Corporation and Chairperson of HCL Technologies, talk about ‘Business and Society: Marrying the Two’. 

Switching gears from technology to law, India’s legal eagle Zia Mody, Co–founder & Managing Partner, AZB & Partners, will share her thoughts on ‘Fixing the Leaking Pipeline of Women Leaders’.  

India’s promising startup space will also see ample representation. Co-founder & CEO of SUGAR Cosmetics, Vineeta Singh, will tackle burning topics from the space in a session entitled ‘Woman on the Pitch: Changing Dealscape’. As more and more Indians are trying out their hand at setting up their own ventures, a panel with Ghazal and Varun Alagh of Mamaearth, Meena Ganesh, Co-founder & Chairperson, Portea Medical and Ameera Shah, MD, Metropolis Healthcare, will discuss ‘The Entrepreneurial Itch’. 

A sector-agnostic panel of Suman Mishra, CEO, Mahindra Last Mile Mobility, Ashima Goyal, Member, RBI Monetary Policy Committee, Jyoti Deshpande, CEO, Viacom18 Media, and Daisy Chittilapilly, President Cisco India and SAARC, will discuss ‘Women and the Organisation: Changing Hues’ 

With multiple Indian films winning at the Oscars this year, the Indian film industry has shown the world what it’s capable of. From the world of films, eminent filmmaker & actor Nandita Das will talk about her ‘Journey as a Woman Director’, while popular fashion designer and actor Masaba Gupta, who is the Founder, House of Masaba, will share her thoughts in a session called ‘Stars and Their New Stripes’.  

Actor-turned-politician Smriti Irani, Union Minister of Women & Child Development and Minister of Minority Affairs, will wrap up the evening of discussions with her thoughts on ‘Leveraging India’s Better Half for Economic & Social Growth’. She will then present the awards to this year’s winners.  

This year’s 55 winners are an eclectic mix of trailblazing women from fields as varied as textiles, pharma, entertainment, start-ups, finance, manufacturing. Representing both continuity and change, the list includes nine new entrants, 31 repeat winners from last year, and seven comebacks from earlier years (among them Securities & Exchange Board of India chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch).  

Three women—Nita Ambani of Reliance Foundation, Kaku Nakhate of Bank of America and Priya Nair of Unilever—who are seven-time winners and therefore enter BT’s prestigious MPW Hall of Fame, making way for new entrants to come in next year.  Global Indians—like Anshula Kant, managing director and chief financial officer of the World Bank and Devika Bulchandani, Global CEO, Ogilvy— also serve as inspirations to women beyond borders.

Here's a toast to all the women achievers! 

Also Read: MPW 2022: How Aarthi Subramaniam is driving digital innovation at Tata Sons