Akhila Srinivasan
49, Managing Director, Shriram Life Insurance
(Number of times in BT's Most Powerful list: 2)

Akhila Srinivasan devotes roughly 80 per cent of her time to managing Shriram Life Insurance, one of the companies in the Rs 40,000 crore Shriram Group. Just 20 per cent for other activities may appear inadequate to achieve any major goal, but Srinivsan packs a punch even when she is not overseeing operations of Shriram Life Insurance, where she is Managing Director.

The Shriram Foundation started by Srinivasan, of which she is the Managing Trustee, runs a free school and a community college to train the outlying village students and youth south of Chennai.

Biggest achievement in 2010: Imparting depth and scale to the CSR initiatives of the Shriram Group Being a powerful woman is important because: One can be a change agent and a role model and can help women to actualise their potential Tip for work-life balance: Good time management and energy management A workplace without women is like: A garden without flowers

The school provides free Montessori system of education, breakfast and lunch to around 600 students up to the eighth standard; the college provides subsidised courses across verticals such as farming, vehicle maintenance and finance course tailored to requirements of non-banking finance companies. "1 am passionate about education,'' says Srinivasan who two years ago founded an organisation, within the Foundation, called "Give Life". It currently gives educational support to the underprivileged students from other schools.

Srinivasan is also President of the Shri Shri Ravishankar University in Orissa, an honorary position. She is responsible for setting up the University from scratch, to be completed in phases by 2017. Srinivasan is targeting July 2011 to flag off an MBA course from the university; this will be followed by engineering, health sciences, law, and other curricula in the years ahead. "This university will become the Nalanda of modern India, incorporating ancient and modern wisdom,'' she says.
-Nitya Varadarajan

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