Meher Pudumjee's day in the sun

Meher Pudumjee
44, Chairperson, Thermax Ltd
(Number of times inBT's Most Powerful list: 2)

Biggest achievement in 2010: Focusing on sustainable energy Being a powerful woman is important because: Powerful to me is being a good human being and making a difference Tip for work-life balance: Delegate instead of doing it all by yourself A workplace without women is like: Missing out on 50 per cent of the world's population

She isn't your regular corporate CEO - Meher Pudumjee, Chairperson of Thermax Ltd, eschews management jargon, and does not think it is a big deal to be "powerful."

"I do not like the word." When it comes to strategy and execution, however, she is bang on the money. Right now, she has her hands full repositioning Thermax as a sustainable energy and environment solutions company. The company recently designed a unit to provide solar power to a village in Maharashtra in a public-private partnership.

-Anusha Subramanian

The 30 Most Powerful Women
1.Schauna Chauhan 2.Zarin Daruwala 3.Lynn de Souza 4.Tanya Dubash 5.Shyamala Gopinath 6.Vinita Gupta 7.Kaku Nakhate 8.Vedika Bhandarkar 9.Manisha Girotra 10.Lalita Gupte 11.Usha Narayanan 12.Akhila Srinivasan 13.Leena Nair 14.Vinita Bali 15.Chanda Kochhar	16.Roopa Kudva 17.Naina Lal Kidwai 18.Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw 19.Zarina Mehta 20.Zia Mody 21.Kalpana Morparia 22.Vishakha Mulye 23.Swati Piramal 24.Meher Pudumjee 25.Madhabi Puri Buch 26.Chitra Ramkrishna 27.Preetha Reddy 28.Shikha Sharma 29.Mallika Srinivasan 30.Sangeeta Talwar