My today’s blog is in continuation of yesterday’s blog on the most powerful Indian women
Here is the list of powerful Indian women from number 5 to number 1.
5 Falguni Nayar
She is an Indian billionaire businesswoman, who is the founder and CEO of beauty and lifestyle company Nykaa. By education, she has an MBA in finance, which she has done from IIM Ahmedabad. In 1993 she joined Kotak Mahindra group after leaving her consultant job at AF Ferguson & Co. At Kotak, she was initially the head of the mergers and acquisitions team, before going on to open institutional equities offices in London and New York City. In 2001 she returned to India, and in 2005 she was appointed MD of Kotak Mahindra Capital, she quit her job in Kotak in 2012. In the same year, she founded Nykaa with$2 million of her own money. In 2021 Nykaa’s worth was $2.3 billion, bringing her fortune to $1.1 billion. Nayar is one of the 2 self-made female Indian billionaires, the other being Kiran Majumdar Shaw
4 Kiran Majumdar-Shaw
She is an Indian billionaire businesswoman, who is the Executive Chairperson and founder of Biocon Limited and Biocon Biologics Limited, a biotechnology company. She was also the former chairperson of IIN, Bangalore. In 2014, she was awarded the ‘Othmer Gold Medal’ for outstanding contributions to the progress of science and chemistry. In 2019, she was listed as the 68th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. At the start of her career, she was a trainee manager at Biocon Biochemicals Limited, in Cork, Ireland. After learning about the business, she returned to India and started Biocon India in 1978 in the garage of her rented house in Bangalore with a seed capital of Rs 10,000. It was a joint venture, where she owned 70% and the balance 30% was foreign ownership. She spearheaded Biocon’s evolution from an industrial enzymes manufacturing company to a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company with a balanced portfolio of products and research focus on diabetes, oncology, and auto-immune diseases. She also established two subsidiaries-Syngene(1994) which provides early research and development support services on a contract basis, and Clinigene (2000) which focuses on clinical research trials and the development of both generic and new medicines. Clinigene was later merged with Syngene.
In 1998, her fiancée John Shaw (now her husband) personally raised $2 million to purchase the outstanding foreign Biocon shares from foreign investors (originally Biocon Chemicals, Ireland, which was later landed with ICI). The couple married in 1998, and he became Biocon’s vice chairman in 2001. As of 2010, she was named among TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. She has a long list of other International awards.
3 Ritu Karidhal Srivastava
She is an Indian scientist and aerospace engineer working with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). She was a Deputy Operations Director for India’s Mars orbital mission, Manalyaan. She has been referred to as one of the many ‘Rocket Women’ of India. A Bollywood film Mission Mangal was made a few years back and actress Vidya Balan portrayed her character in the film. Mangalyaan was one of the greatest achievements of ISRO. It was done in 18 months for just Rs 450 crores. Her job was to conceptualise and execute the craft’s onward autonomy system, which operated the satellite’s function independently in space and responded appropriately to malfunctions. She supervised the Chandrayaan 2 mission as the mission director. Again in 2023, India launched the Chandrayaan-3 mission to land on the lunar South pole, and finally, India became the country to soft land on the lunar south pole. She worked for the same mission and led India to this huge success. She was awarded the ISRO Young Scientist Award in 2007. She was also awarded an honorary doctorate by Lucknow University, her alma mater.
2 Roshni Nadar
She is known by her maiden name only, otherwise, her full name is Roshni Nadar Malhotra. She is an Indian billionaire businesswoman and philanthropist and chairperson of HCL Technologies. She is the first woman to lead a listed IT company. She is the only child of HCL group founder Shiv Nadar. She graduated from Northwestern University majoring in Communication with a focus on Radio/TV/Film. She worked in various companies as a producer before joining HCL. Within a year of her joining HCL, she was elevated to executive director and CEO of HCL Corporation. She subsequently became the chairperson of HCL Technologies after her father Shiv Nadar stepped down. Before becoming CEO of HCL Corporation, she was a trustee of the Shiv Nadar Foundation, which runs the not-for-profit Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar College of Engineering in Chennai. She is the chairperson of Vidyagyan Leadership Academy, a leadership academy for the economically underprivileged. She set up ‘The Habitats’ trust that aims at protecting India’s natural habitats and indigenous species in a bid to create and conserve sustainable ecosystems. In 2014, she was awarded NDTV Young Philanthropist of the Year. In 2015, she was conferred ‘The World’s Most Innovative People Award’ for Philanthropic Innovation by The World Summit on Innovation & Entrepreneurship. In 2017 she was awarded ‘Vogue Philanthropist of the Year’.
Now coming to the most powerful woman in the country at present, she is
1 Nirmala Sitharaman
She is presently 64 years old, an Indian economist, politician, and senior leader of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), and presently she is serving as the Minister of Finance and Minister of Corporate Affairs of the government of India since 2019.
She completed her MA in economics and M Phil from JNU. Early in her career, she worked as a salesperson at Habitat, a home décor store in London. Later she served as an assistant to the Economist in the Agricultural Engineers Association in the UK. During her stay in the UK, she also served as Senior Manager (R&D) for PWC and briefly at BBC World Service.
She joined the BJP in 2008. She was the national spokesperson of the party till 2014. In 2014, she was inducted into PM Modi’s cabinet as a junior minister In 2018 she was made Defence Minister and headed the Blalakot Air Strike carried out by the Indian Air Force in 2019. Presently she is a Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka. As Union Finance Minister she created history as she presented her sixth consecutive budget on 1st Feb 2024, matching the record set by former PM Morarji Desai.
The JNU conferred her the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2019. Forbes magazine has ranked her 34th among the most powerful women in the world in 2019, in 2023 she was ranked at number 32. She was also awarded the Business Reformer of the Year award at the Economic Times Award for corporate excellence in 2021.
Friends, do share your views on the most powerful Indian women.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
13th February 2024