The Most Powerful Women In Business 2018

Most Powerful Women In Business

The list includes 30 women. These are women who are at the helm of power signing billion dollar deals, creating new businesses, acquiring companies and building brands.

Aarthi Subramanian, Chief Digital Officer, Tata Sons

Aarthi Subramanian is taking the $100 billion Tata group's digital initiatives to the next phase.

Alice G. Vaidyan, CMD, General Insurance Corporation of India

Alice Vaidyan has set the foundation for a bigger play for GIC re in both domestic and global markets.

Ameera Shah Promoter & MD, Metropolis Healthcare

Ameera Shah turned her father's nondescript clinic into one of the largest pathology chains in india.

Apurva Purohit, President, Jagran Group

Apurva Purohit revamped Jagran group's tepid business, and received recognition.

Aruna Jayanthi MD, APAC Business Unit and LatAm Unit

Aruna Jayanthi is leading the IT giant's initiatives in Asia-Pacific and Latin America

Aruna Sundararajan Telecom Secretary and Chairman, Telecom Commission

Aruna Sundararajan is setting the agenda for the telecom sector's next phase of growth.

Ashu Suyash MD & CEO, CRISIL

Ashu Suyash, head of india's largest ratings agency, is making CRISIL future ready.

Debarati Sen MD, 3M India

Debarati Sen has been closely involved with 3M's India story. The company has
been posting strong growth under her.

Debjani Ghosh President, NASSCOM

Debjani Ghosh is acting as a catalyst for Indian IT's tranformation. She is heading Nasscom at a time the industry is facing a set of complex challenges.

Falguni Nayar, Founder and CEO, Nykaa

Falguni Nayar has redefined the online beauty space. She is the founder of one of the few ecommerce ventures that are close to profitability.

Harshbeena S. Zaveri, Vice Chairman and MD, NRB Bearings

She energises and motivates her team to ride through turbulent times to come out a winner. NRB Bearings, under her leadership, recorded a whopping 75% jump in profits in FY 2017/18.

Indu Malhotra, Judge, Supreme Court of India

Indu Malhotra is the first woman lawyer to be elevated directly to the position of Supreme Court judge. Her expertise in arbitration makes her stand out.

Jyotsna Suri, Chairperson and MD, Bharat Hotels

Jyotsna Suri is leading the group to a Rs 1,200 crore IPO. The group's rebranding exercise, which started in 2008 under her leadership, has led to steady growth.

Lakshmi Venu, Joint MD, Sundaram-Clayton; Deputy MD, TAFE Motors & Tractors

The fourth-generation scion has donned many hats to take the business ahead. After an extensive induction across major areas, she is in key roles now, and making a difference.

Nadia Chauhan Joint MD, Parle Agro

Nadia Chauhan has ensured that her beverage brands are available in every nook and corner of India. Chauhan has integrated much-needed tech solutions to boost distribution and sales.

Neeru Chadha, Judge, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea

Neeru Chadha is the first Indian woman to be elected judge on the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. She is an eminent jurist with extensive international arbitration and litigation experience.

Nisaba Godrej, Executive Chairperson, Godrej Consumer Products

Her new-age brands and people policies are transforming the company. A deep dive into the growth strategy makes her a successful agent of change.

Pallavi S. Shroff, Managing Partner, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas

Pallavi Shroff has taken on some of the biggest names globally in the battle for IPR. She has won some really high-profile cases that have resulted in policy changes.

Prathiba M. Singh, Permanent Judge, Delhi High Court

Prathiba Singh has contributed to some of the most important IPR laws and given landmark judgments. She has given a landmark judgment on exclusion of patients with genetic disorders by insurers.

Priya Nair, Executive Director, Home Care, HUL

Priya Nair is taking premium products to smaller towns. She has laid a three-pronged strategy for building the brand.

Radha Chouhan, CEO, Government e-Marketplace

Under Chauhan's leadership, the government's e-marketplace business has grown manifold. Chauhan has replaced a century-old procurement system with an efficient and equitable e-market.

Rekha Menon, Chairman and Senior MD, Accenture India

About 1,00,000 employees in India have been trained in newer digital technologies under Menon's leadership. Community impact is a key focus of Menon, who is promoting digital upskilling programmes.

RM Vishakha, MD & CEO, IndiaFirst Life Insurance

Her early digitisation efforts and a customer-first policy have given the organisation a cutting edge. She is a turnaround expert who also strives to improve the work-life balance of the employees.

Shobana Kamineni, Executive Vice Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise

Shobana Kamineni has been the key force behind growth in the pharmacy and insurance business for Apollo. She has made Apollo's pharmacy business the biggest pharmaceutical retail chain in India; the insurance business is also going great guns.

Shweta Jalan, MD, Advent India PE Advisors Pvt Ltd.

Shweta Jalan is expanding the footprint of a relatively new global private equity firm in India. She has
managed to seal several profitable deals for Advent.

Usha Sangwan, MD, LIC

The first woman MD of LIC is leaving her mark on the Rs 28 lakh crore assets corporation. Her tenure saw LIC touch record premium collections and increase use of technology.

Vanaja Sarna, Ex-Chairperson, CBIC

Vanaja Sarna successfully oversaw the biggest tax overhaul in the country. Took up the massive challenge of rolling out GST.

Vani Kola, Co-founder & MD, Kalaari Capital

Vani Kola has made a mark in the male-dominated world of venture capital with several successful exits. She runs her firm with a founder first philosophy.

Vibha Padalkar, Executive Director and CFO, HDFC Life

Vibha Padalkar is focusing on profitable products, risk management and setting high standards for disclosures. She manages finances of one of India's most highly valued life insurers.

Zarin Daruwala, CEO, Standard Chartered Bank, India

Zarin Daruwala is well on the path of de-risking the business model of one of the largest foreign banks in India. She is making StanChart more profitable by adding more retail clients and deposits.

Impact women

The list includes 16 women. These are women who are activists, entrepreneurs, animal lovers, foundation heads, or very driven individuals who have been touched deeply by issues and haven't deterred from spending their life to bring about change.

Aditi Gupta, Co-founder, Menstrupedia

Aditi Gupta has used comic books to make thousands of girls aware about menstrual health. 1,50,000 girls in more than 250 schools are using these books as part of the curriculum.

Anuradha Kapoor, Managing Trustee and Founder, Swayam

Swayam has stepped up efforts to fight violence against women. For her stand that violence against women is a violation of human rights.

Latika Thukral, Co-founder, Iamgurgaon

Enabling an eco-revival to keep Gurgaon vibrant. Instead of routine plantation, her NGO has undertaken big eco-restoration projects to combat urban decadence.

Noorjehan Safia Niaz, Founder, Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan

Noorjehan Safia Niaz is the voice of socially and economically backward muslim women. Her fight against the repressive triple talaq could soon make the age-old practice illegal.

Phoolbasan Bai Yadav, Social Activist

She is making women self-reliant through microinitiatives. Yadav's NGO is helping over two lakh women and 13,000 self-help groups.

Praseeda Kunam, Co-founder and CEO, Samhita Community Development Services

Praseeda Kunam's Samhita Community helps poor women live a dignified life and offers them opportunity to work. She is working hard to educate poor women on their financial and legal rights.

Prukalpa Sankar, Co-founder, SocialCops

Prukalpa Sankar is using data power to bring about change in social world. She identified the need to analyse social data for better understanding of social and economic milieu.

Dr. Rani Bang, Co-founder, Search

Dr. Rani Bang's community care model has been replicated in 17 emerging countries. Her programme, called Nirman, is training youngsters to become change agents.

Ratnaboli Ray, Founder, Anjali

Ratnaboli Ray's Anjali helps mental hospital inmates understand their worth and live a dignified life. She is transforming lives of mental health patients who are mar-ginalised by society.

Rukmini Banerji, CEO, Pratham

Pratham's Aser has helped identify learning gaps among primary school children. She has taken a host of initiatives to make elementary education realistic for school children.

Sabarmatee, Founder, Sambhav

Sabarmatee has changed the face of rural odisha with organic farming. Sabarmatee has disproved the popular belief that indigenous varieties and organic farming reduce production.

Shayara Bano, Social Activist

Shayara Bano fought a fierce battle against Triple Talaq and got the Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional. After triple talaq, she has resolved to crusade against polygamy and Nikah Halala.

Suhani Mohan, Co-founder, Saral Designs

Suhani Mohan is taking sanitary pads to women at large and making them aware of menstrual hygiene. Mohan wants to set up at least 100 pad-making machines in remote corners of the country. She is also reaching out to other developing and poor countries.

Sumita Ghose, Founder, RangSutra

Sumita Ghose's artisan collective RangSutra, which started out from Rajasthan, is now a supplier to IKEA. By setting up a company where artisans play an active role, Ghose has transformed hundreds of lives.

Vijayalakshmi Das, CEO, Friends of Women's World Banking, India

Vijayalakshmi Das once hand-held the microfinance institutions. Now, she is doing the same with farmer collectives and churning out women entrepreneurs. FWWB, India, under her is helping farmer collectives create credit history so that they can later tap banks and grow manifold.

Surga Thilakan, Co-founder and CEO, iSTAR Skill Development

Surga Thilakan quit her Goldman Sachs job to work on upskilling people for entry-level jobs with the help of technology. She has already trained 20,000 job seekers, of which close to 17,000 are working at a salary of Rs 15,000 and above.