Listings are horribly hard to put together. This one is more so. For one, how does one measure power? For another, when there are so many talented and successful women in Indian business, how does one zero in on the 25 most powerful? The first question is relatively easy to answer.
Power is what power does. To have a grand title is one thing, to actually do something that amplifies the power of the position, another. Ergo, we defined power as influence over an industry (like what RBI’s Deputy Governor Usha Thorat exercises), the ability to change the rules of the game (Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon), or a distinction that’s unique (like Leena Nair becoming Hindustan Unilever’s first woman executive director).
Like in the previous three years, we relied on industry watchers to arrive at the final list of 25. They helped us identify eight new power women this year. You’ll meet them, and the others, in the pages that follow.
1. Vinita Bali
Age 51/ Managing Director/ Britannia Industries
In early 2006, Bangalore-based Britannia Industries was looking down the wrong end of the barrel. Its CEO had quit and nimbler rivals, including ITC Foods and Parle, had grabbed market share in all segments.
Worse, senior executives were leaving in droves and the company faced crisis of confidence. To try and stem the rot, Britannia turned to Vinita Bali in the end of May last year. Bali, who previously worked with beverages giant Coca-Cola in Atlanta, became the first woman CEO to be hired by Bombay Dyeing supremo Nusli Wadia, who controls Britannia, for any of his group companies.
Vinita Bali
Bali has since managed to resurrect Britannia’s fortunes, with new products, heavy branding and marketing and some acquisitions, including Strategic Foods in Dubai. Bali (she couldn’t meet BT for this profile, since she was travelling in Europe) has put the building blocks in place. She now has to focus on growing Britannia’s margins and inevitably managing the testy relationship between the Wadias and Danon, their foreign partner in Britannia.
2. Shobhana Bhartia
Age 50/ Vice Chairperson & Editorial Director/ HT Media
For Shobhana Bhartia, the year 2007 will go down as one when the many associations that the Vice Chairperson and Editorial Director of HT Media has forged came to fruition.
Shobhana Bhartia
Mint, a business daily launched in February in association with the Wall Street Journal, is seen to be closing in on the No. 2 spot in its segment with an estimated circulation of 80,000 copies; Fever 104, an FM channel where Richard Branson’s Virgin Radio is the partner, debuted in Mumbai and Bangalore (it’s been in Delhi for 10 months now) this year and has done well for itself. Metro Now, a daily tabloid, launched this February in Delhi in association with former arch-rival Bennett, Coleman & Company, has managed to rack up 1.10 lakh copies in daily sales.
HT’s first quarter numbers were pretty impressive. Revenues were up 33 per cent at Rs 247.90 crore, while the bottom line jumped 212 per cent at Rs 30.6 crore. The stock (HT Media listed in September 2005) has been on a roll since June last year, going from Rs 78 or so to Rs 218 on September 12. The 50-yearold Bhartia, who is married to Shyam Sundar Bhartia, Chairman & Managing Director, Jubilant Organosys, has her hands full otherwise.
The Padma Shri awardee is a Rajya Sabha member and an active industry figure, who until recently was the Chairperson of the Audit Bureau of Circulation. Apparently, her focus now is on the Hindi daily, Hindustan, and HT’s internet initiatives.
Still, rumours keep resurfacing about Bhartia either selling her majority stake or merging with another media heavyweight. The lady never reacts to such rumours, and that only seems to add to her power halo.
3. Elaben Bhatt
Age 74/ Founder/ SEWA
Close to a million people are associated with the organisation that Elaben Bhatt founded in 1972. Initially started as a trade union, SEWA is perhaps the only organisation of its kind that hopes to improve the lot of women workers in various trades to integrate them into the national economy by organising them. These include women who are pappad rollers, handcart pullers, bidi makers, maids, fish vendors, etc.
Elaben Bhatt
Today, SEWA runs a whole lot of services for these women—from insurance services to granting ID cards, and has 18 economic institutions like SEWA Bank and SEWA Social Security.
A Gandhian, Bhatt is the driving force of this organisation.
Among SEWA’s key achievements last year are: Victory in its legal battle for vegetable vendors in the High Court of Gujarat; legal space for more than 10,000 vendors in Indore, getting identity cards for paper pickers, and the launching of new pension schemes by SEWA Bank.
Although well into her 70s, Bhatt continues to be the guiding force at SEWA.
4. Neelam Dhawan
Age 47/ MD/ Microsoft India
In just two years, Neelam Dhawan has managed to becomeMicrosoft’s face in India as far as her customers are concerned. And that’s not just because she’s the software giant’s Managing Director for India, but also because she’s a veteran of the IT industry, especially hardware.
Neelam Dhawan
While Microsoft India Chairman Ravi Venkatesan thinks long term, it is Dhawan, as the woman directly in charge of the sales and marketing subsidiary, who drives financial targets.
Well regarded within both Microsoft and the industry, Dhawan, who started off as a trainee at HCL, is known for being accessible and cutting through lines to directly reach executives in the company.
Needless to say, hers isn’t an easy job. “Maintaining work-life balance isn’t easy, especially if you are as ambitious as I am,” she says with a laugh. Although a self-confessed hardware person, Dhawan feels excited about what Microsoft is trying to do in India, and which is not just to sell software, but bridge the digital divide.
“There are a set of evolved users in India, both companies and at homes, but the challenge is to get to the middle of the pyramid and I relish it,” says Dhawan. Just the sort of thing, Redmond would be delighted to hear.
5. Manisha Girotra
Age 38/ MD & Chairperson, India/ UBS
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in India are booming and the woman in the thick of it all is Manisha Girotra. In the last eight months, she’s been involved in deals worth a staggering $20 billion (that’s Rs 82,000 crore), including Vodafone’s acquisition of majority stake in Hutch-Essar for $10.9 billion and Hindalco’s buyout of Novelis for $5.95 billion.
Manisha Girotra
Girotra, an alumna of Delhi School of Economics, has also done two other large deals: United Spirits’ purchase of Whyte & Mackay for $1.2 billion, and Essar Global’s $1.6-billion buyout of Canada’s Algoma Steel.
M&A is never an easy game, but Girotra has managed to stay on top of the ball. “M&A requires very high levels of tenacity apart from a lot of patience, and what has worked to our advantage is that we spotted the cross-border opportunity early in the day,” says Girotra, whose husband Sanjay Agarwal is MD and Head (Investment Banking), Deutsche Bank. M&A apart, Girotra’s firm has had a busy time handling IPOs (Jet and DLF are two) and bonds. With India Inc. just about warming up to big deals, Girotra can expect busy years ahead.
6. Renu Sud Karnad
Age 55/ Executive Director/ HDFC
It is a question she is often asked: how long has she been working with her present organisation? Renu Sud Karnad, 55, over the years has evolved a smart answer: “Probably more years than the weeks that you have been with your present organisation.” Well, she can truly claim that since Karnad’s total work experience has been with India’s oldest and arguably the most influential home loans company, HDFC.
Renu Sud Karnad
Having joined the organisation in 1978, Karnad believes that there would be more women in business if they received support from their families and organisation. “If they get support when they first have children and then when the children are passing out of school, then women float through,” she says.
She certainly got that from her husband and defence expert, Bharat Karnad.
A hectic traveller herself (on an average half a month), Karnad says she enjoys the pace. “I enjoy working. If I have to stay at home for some reason, I hate it.” Well there is reason enough to be excited about the Indian housing mortgage market. HDFC has shown 25-30 per cent growth year-on-year over the past 10 years.
However, the industry is slowing down after years of crackling growth over the last few months due to rising interest rates and property prices. Karnad, however, believes that the fundamental story remains intact. “The real people are still there,” she asserts.
Naina Lal Kidwai
Age 50/ Group GM & Country Head (India)/ HSBC
It’s a great time to be a banker in India, but a 64 per cent jump in net profits (2006-07) is still no mean achievement. And if HSBC is going great guns, thank its understated but hard-driving country head, Naina Lal Kidwai.
Chanda Kochhar and Naina Lal Kidwai
A constant name in Business Today’s listing of power women in the country, Kidwai has a slightly more complex job than her peers at Indian private banks such as ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank. While the latter are trying to tap global opportunities, Kidwai’s global bank must deepen its India presence.
“We bring a truly, young, resilient organisation that is thinking, creating and perpetually reinventing itself,” Kidwai had earlier told BT.
By now, almost everyone knows Kidwai’s story. A chartered accountant, India’s first woman alum of the Harvard Business School, and who landed up at HSBC via ANZ Grindlays and JM Morgan Stanley, where she was the head of investment banking.
“There are times when I wonder if I should have worked for a couple of years in New York before returning (from Harvard) to India,” she says. She needn’t wonder. She’s doing just fine. Just ask her bosses in Hong Kong.
8. Chanda Kochhar
Age 45/ Deputy MD/ ICICI Bank
It has been exciting and fulfilling all the time,” quips Chanda Kochhar of the 23 years she has spent at ICICI Bank. But perhaps there is nothing to beat the excitement she must have felt over the last eight years, when MD& CEO, K.V. Kamath, first asked her to build the bank’s retail business. It’s been a roaring success: ICICI Bank is the leader in credit cards with over eight million customers; the number one in home loans and car loans; and also the biggest bank after public sector behemoth, the State Bank of India.
A cost accountant and MBA (from Mumbai’s Jamnalal Bajaj), Kochhar joined ICICI Bank as a management trainee and worked in a variety of roles before making her mark in retail banking. According to some, she is one of the contenders for the top job at ICICI Bank. Kamath retires in 2009.
9. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw
Age 54/ CMD/ Biocon
When you are a power woman, you always figure out how to deal with a personal crisis and business exigencies at the same time. Consider Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, for instance. Around the time Biocon was busy negotiating with Danish firm Novozymes for the sale of its enzymes business recently, her husband John Shaw was diagnosed with a cancerous lump in his kidney.
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw
So, for almost 20 days between April and May this year, Mazumdar-Shaw not just tended to her husband in a UK hospital, but also made all the strategic decisions needed for the sale, which was concluded in July. “John’s diagnosis came as a complete surprise, thank god the ordeal is over,” she says.
Passion, energy, conviction, ambitious are some things that have gone into the making of India’s bestknown biotech baroness, who now oversees a business that tops Rs 990 crore in annual revenues and Rs 4,600 crore in market cap.
With the enzymes business, which is what Mazumdar-Shaw started off with 30 years ago, hived off to Novozymes, she is now on a mission to turn Biocon into a bio-pharmaceuticals company, with a possible overseas listing and acquisitions.
10. Zia Mody
Age 51/ Managing Partner/ AZB & Partners
When she first started off in the mid-1980s, clients initially had a tough time believing Zia Mody could be as good as a male attorney. So what if she was (former) Attorney General of India, Soli Sorabjee’s daughter.
Zia Mody
But today all that has changed and she is the most sought after corporate and M&A lawyer in the country, having represented the Tata Group in Tata Steel’s acquisition of NatSteel for $285 million and Reliance Industries Chairman, Mukesh Ambani, in the settlement with brother Anil.
A strong believer and member of Bahai Faith, Mody is one of the few women to have made it big in the legal profession. “It is not easy for women to reach the top rung in the Indian legal profession. We have all the skill sets but a lot of us fall short on being able to multi-task and spend long working hours,” she says.
“It also involves sacrificing time for the family and the feeling of guilt often, naturally, overpowers most of us.” On the one thing that she feels she has still not achieved professionally is, “To be able to get the right balance between lawyering and my personal life. I still find it difficult to say ‘No’ to clients, though I am getting a bit better at it.”