Call it the Pygmalion Effect or a corollary, but those marked for stardom do shine bright. In 2015, The Economic Times released a first-ofits-kind listing of corporate India’s fastest rising women leaders, based on an extensive study conducted by Spencer Stuart. A dipstick survey now shows the 25 women on that list have more than lived up to expectations. The professionals have risen through their organisations, the start-up entrepreneurs have established themselves and the scions of the traditional business houses have all led their companies on the path to growth.
This year, the ET Woman Ahead listing is longer, in line with the expanding universe of successful women leaders in India. The eminent jury that arrived at the final list saw no reason to restrict the number and the final list features 34 women leaders. They include star executives from the banking sector, which has always been ahead in promoting women; consulting firms, business school favourites, where women are starting to make a mark and multinationals, whose diversity mandates have played a big role in producing women leaders in India. Not surprisingly, the list features a fair number of start-up entrepreneurs. And then there are daughters of leading business houses, some of whom have upstaged their brothers.
We present profiles of the rising stars who have made the Woman Ahead list 2016. One question we asked all of them was what their advice to other women might be. Interestingly, their answers dwelt on a common theme. Believe in yourself, leverage your strengths, they said — and never try to act like a man.
Lakshmi Venu,, Joint Managing Director, Sundaram Clayton
Travelling frequently between London and Chennai, Lakshmi Venu did her PhD in engineering management at University of Warwick even as she worked as vice-president for strategy at Sundaram Clayton.
Venu’s thesis, under the guidance of Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharya, was on strategies for indigenous companies in developing countries, which was a fairly new subject academically, since most of the literature was on developed countries MNCs entering emerging markets. “It made for high quality learning, since I was able to relate theory to practice,” she says.
Venu has never had a problem with extensive travelling. She lived out of a suitcase when she was given the responsibility for the US market, which accounts for a large proportion of Sundaram Clayton’s business.
Today, as joint managing director, she’s investing heavily in research, especially in the area of lightweight materials, which she sees as a key trend in automobile engineering. “I think all of us in the Indian auto-component industry are now moving from importing know-how to developing in-house competencies,” she says.
Shinjini Kumar,, CEO, Paytm Payments Bank
Looking back at her career trajectory, Shinjini Kumar muses that she hasn’t changed jobs as much as changed careers.
From starting out in journalism, to working at the RBI for 16 years to compliance to consultancy and now a payments bank.
One thing she’s learnt through all this is the ability to leave things behind. “For me, moving on has never been a problem. I’m more forward looking and get excited about the opportunity to learn something new,” she says. While the first six months in a new job are when she is completely out of her comfort zone, that’s also something she really enjoys.
Her time studying in the US also helped her think more clearly about her own ideas and be independent, which gave her a lot more confidence to do things her way. At PwC, she built a unique business, working with MNC banks and financial institutions to grow their presence in India, in line with the local regulations.
When she wants to de-stress, the former journalist enjoys reading her husband’s poetry and offering ‘suggestions’ — not editing.
Suchi Mukherjee, Founder, Limeroad
When Suchi Mukherjee set up ecommerce platform Limeroad in 2012, she was bringing together three completely different ecosystems: sellers, scrapbookers and consumers.
This has turned out to be a huge factor in the company’s success, from getting 50,000 sellers in the first year, to growing 100x in the past year, to go up to one lakh consumers. One of the goals Mukherjee has managed to achieve with Limeroad is to make local products available to a larger audience, which has happened through a tie-up with the MP Laghu Udyog Nigam. There were challenges and naysayers aplenty. “While I was trying to set up the business , I was told in as many words that for an Indian woman who has lived out of the country for so many years, trying to set up a new company was going to be next to impossible, and that’s just the sort of thing that eggs me on with greater conviction,” she says.
She strongly believes in the importance of staying focused on what you are building and learning to cut out the noise around you. “Everything is do-able. I try to motivate my team to be problem-solvers too, to take up tougher problems and bigger challenges,” she says.
Zahabiya Khorakiwala,, Managing Director, Wockhardt Hospitals
When Zahabiya Khorakiwala joined the family’s hospital subsidiary instead of the parent pharma company, it was a measured choice. “But I didn’t realise then that I would become so passionate about it,” she says. “I enjoy every minute I work here. It’s my true calling.”
After spending three years at Wockhardt Hospitals as director, business development, and right after getting married, Khorakiwala left to do her MBA at Indian School of Business in 2009. Since taking over as managing director in 2010, she has been responsible for setting up two new hospitals in Mumbai. “The two were very different learning experiences,” she says. “The South Mumbai hospital was built from scratch and I was involved at every stage, from getting permissions to construction and launch. The North Mumbai hospital was an acquisition, so it was a different kind of learning.”
Wockhhardt has nine hospitals spread over Gujarat and Maharashtra and in her initial years, she spent much of her time on the road, visiting these places. Today, she’s focused on the two new hospitals in Mumbai and has delegated the running of the older hospitals to the professionals.
She’s now the mother of a one-and-a-half -year old daughter and is aiming for better work-life balance. “I got back to work within two months of having my baby,” she says, “but now I’m more rigid about my work timings. I try and get home earlier to spend time with my daughter.”
Smita Bhagat,, Head, Branch Banking and E-commerce, HDFC Bank
Soon after Smita Bhagat joined HDFC as a trainee in Mumbai, a position opened up in her home town, Jaipur. “I volunteered and got the job. Nobody else wanted to work in a small town,” she says.
The young CA stayed on in Jaipur, changing several jobs before she rejoined the HDFC group. But when the bank offered her a posting at headquarters, she quelled her doubts and accepted. “It was a big decision for me then,” she says. “But once I came to Mumbai, I had the chance to learn more and this opened up new opportunities.”
Her time in Jaipur, working with the small traders, has left its mark on Bhagat and given her important insights that she’s using as the head of branch banking and e-commerce. “I am passionate about helping small businesses in rural areas. E-commerce is not a glamorous concept. For a bank, it is about simple things like providing more convenient means of payment collection. Adoption of technology is the highest in rural areas because it makes the greatest difference to them,” she says.
Monica Gupta,, Founder, Craftsvilla
It was while travelling through Kutch in Gujarat that Monica Gupta struck upon the idea to set up what would eventually be Craftsvilla, a platform for Indian ethnic products that puts artisans in touch with customers. Now, the platform has two million products from 16,000 sellers, averaging 10,000 interactions a month. Craftsvilla is likely to hit the $100mn revenues mark this year.
Gupta says, “The most satisfying moment for me was when an artisan called me and said that he could pay his son’s fees because of his sales on Craftsvilla.” The platform has raised multiple rounds of funding and spearheaded partnerships with the Ministry of Textiles to e-market handloom products.
A trained CA, Gupta counts her husband, Manoj, among her mentors and says that she’s constantly learning from various people in her team at work. Her biggest learning? To keep quiet and listen to the customer.
Debarati Sen, Managing Director, 3M India
Debarati Sen’s career spans over 24 years in Asia and the US, 18 of which have been with 3M. This year, she was chosen by the American company to head 3M India & Sri Lanka as managing director. “From the onset, I’ve sought out assignments in other countries so I could establish myself as a trans-cultural leader,” she says.
Deba, as her colleagues call her, is also an executive member of the Women’s Leadership Forum for 3M. As a single mother, she has a personal understanding of the daily challenges that working women all over the world encounter.
She moved to the US with a five-year-old, and today her son is a 20 year old pre-med student at the University of Miami. “Being a single mother has been difficult, but at the same time, it has been most fulfilling and rewarding,” she says.
Sen has been on the board of the 3M Asian Employee Resource Network and also on the national governing board of Jeremiah Program, a Minnesota-based US charity focused on single mothers and two generation strategy.
Neha Juneja, Co-Founder, Greenway Grameen Infra
Greenway Grameen Infra is the third startup Neha Juneja has co-founded, and perhaps one that’s closest to her heart. “This shows that a lot of problems can be solved through a good business idea,” she says.
The problem in question was that of people still cooking with mud stoves in the villages. The solution: a biomass stove which has sold over 4 lakh units over the last four years, generating revenues of over $6.5mn. It’s had a direct impact on the lives of 2mn people and is estimated to have mitigated over 12mn tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. The other remarkable aspect is that the entire sales staff is women.
Her pet peeve is the subtle sexism that exists everywhere – from routinely being asked whether this is her father’s company to being spoken over in investor meetings. “It isn’t sexual harassment, but sexism,” she says.
Samina Vaziralli, Vice-chairman, Cipla
When her family asked her to return to India and fill the leadership void at Cipla five years ago, Samina Vaziralli was ambivalent. She was working for Goldman Sachs in New York and it was a job she enjoyed. “I never expected to join Cipla. I was never groomed for it,” she says.
Nonetheless, she did return to Mumbai and her focus since then has been putting together a cohesive team at Cipla. The company’s management council now consists of professionals who have been with the company for less than two years and 40% are women.
Vaziralli is now the face of the 80-year-old pharma company and her recent promotion to the post of executive vice-chairman marks the formal ascension of the third generation of the promoter family at Cipla. “We believe the company should be professionally managed but promoter led. Creating this balance has been a challenge, but it’s a challenge I have enjoyed,” she says.
Sucharita Mukherjee, CEO, IFMR Holdings
Co-founding IFMR, an organisation that works towards creating an inclusive financial system, has defined not just her career, but her life, says Sucharita Mukherjee. After starting her career on the trading floor, Mukherjee has moved to create wholly new products in the micro finance space.
“It was a nascent market and a very entrepreneurial experience,” she says. “Don’t underestimate the importance of stepping back and thinking about where you are and where you want to go. It’s important to do this from time to time and be honest with yourself. ”Another learning from her time working in corporate markets is that compensation as a way of defining your place in life is very limiting and that you shouldn’t use that as a metric to judge yourself.
Rekha Ranganathan,, Head of Healthcare Innovation Campus, Philips Healthcare
India She was the first girl from her school to make it to IIT Madras, where she topped the Materials Science and Metallurgy stream. That’s an achievement Rekha Ranganathan holds close even today, after having worked across firms like Wharton Consulting, McKinsey & Co and Boston Scientific.
She’s learnt the importance of adaptability and motivating people in different cultures. “Your leadership style has to be tailored to the team you lead, depending on where you are,” she says.
Equally important is the ability to remain patient while being result oriented, and being able to deal with volatility while maintaining a positive outlook. These learnings come in handy in her current role, where she’s managing the global operations of the mobile surgery business for Philips out of Pune, and working with teams across time zones.
Radhika Piramal, Managing Director, VIP Industries
After three years in the family business, Radhika Piramal went to Harvard for an MBA, after which she worked as a consultant at Bain & Company and FutureBrand Inc. Back in India, Piramal’s first initiative was the successful launch of the Caprese handbags, which was followed by the equally successful re-positioning of Skybags as a backpack brand.
Her latest project is the re-launch of Carlton, a leading British luggage brand which has been with VIP since 2004, but which was never promoted in a big way. Piramal is a pioneer not just in business, but in her personal life too.
As the only openly lesbian CEO in India, she is a role model for others in the LGBT community. “My immediate family and colleagues at work have given me their support, which has made it easier for me to talk about these issues in public forums. I hope that by being out, I can help make our society more accepting of all members of the Indian LGBT community,” she says.
Mansi Madan Tripathy, Managing Director, Shell Lubricants
India In her 16-year long career at Procter & Gamble, Mansi Madan Tripathy worked out of Malaysia, Singapore, Boston and in the last three years, she was director in charge of male grooming, which included the Gillette range.
Tripathy’s global career had her living apart from her husband Siddharth, a Delhi-based entrepreneur, for long periods. In 2012, she decided she wanted to come back to India and started scouting for a job here. Tripathy finally settled on Shell. “The headhunters said I needed to be open to a job outside of the FMCG sector and I was open to the challenge,” she says.
A marketing career, with all the travelling, is not for everyone. Tripathy remembers her motivation as a young woman came from wanting to prove to the world that her engineering degree and MBA weren’t going to be wasted. “Now that seems such a petty motivation,” she says. “Today, my sense of purpose comes from wanting to have a positive impact on society.”
Gunjan Soni, Chief Marketing Officer, Myntra
Her stints at Star and McKinsey helped Gunjan Soni prepare for her current role at Myntra. “I picked up the hard skills at McKinsey and Star taught me the importance of good content, aspirations and intuition, all of which are important for a consumer-centric business,” she says.
At Star, Soni was part of an organizational transformation which helped the company de-risk its growth trajectory. At McKinsey, she was responsible for setting up the big data and scientific marketing practice back in 2010 when big data wasn’t on anybody’s agenda. That, along with working on the transition for the first democratically elected government of Bhutan are two things about her stint at the consultancy that she holds dear.
She was the brains behind the country’s largest online fashion sale at Myntra, resulting in 2mn orders in a single day. An avid reader, Soni enjoys science fiction and fantasy, while at other times, you are likely to find her bent over a 5,000-piece puzzle at home.
Shweta Jalan, Managing Director, Advent International
Among the few women at the helm of a private equity fund, Shweta Jalan earned her stripes first at Ernst & Young, and then ICICI Ventures, where she was part of the early team involved with buyouts when it was still an unknown concept in the country.
That stint led her to her current role at Advent India, where she’s been responsible for building both the brand and portfolio in India. Over the years, she has led deals in multiple sectors, including media, IT/BPO, industrials and business services. Operating in what is a highly charged and competitive industry, Jalan says that one of her biggest learnings along the way has been the importance of being patient and persevering and learning not to get carried away.
The mother of two says that travelling with the family helps her de-stress. “Every day is a challenge, and as a woman, it is often a balancing act between personal and professional life. It’s important to remain strong and not give up,” she says.
Bhavna Doegar, Sr Vice-president, Genpact
Bhavna Doegar attributes her long stint at Genpact to the company being in a place where diversity and having different viewpoints is celebrated. “In the very early part of my journey I was entrusted to do things that challenged me and I could push the boundaries of what I could achieve,” she says.
“It’s important to remain curious and keep thinking of how you can improve yourself.” Doegar was responsible for setting up SynerG, a complete redesign of the company’s ERP and accounting processes across 22 countries and 136 countries. Between her two young kids and the volunteering work she does, Doegar doesn’t find too much time to do much else besides read and lately there’s been a gradual shift towards non-fiction. She’s also the founder of the Finance’s People Council at Genpact and has rolled out a leadership pipeline exercise with Harvard.
She volunteers with Isha Vidya and Isha Green Hands, and was instrumental in setting up the Kripa Ram Sood Trust, which operates charitable polyclinics.
Chandrika Pasricha,, CEO and Founder, Flexing It
Starting a career as an independent consultant after a long stint with McKinsey eventually led to Chandrika Pasricha setting up Flexing It, a curated marketplace for short-term and flexible skills. The company is now the largest global platform for flexible talent with a listing of 1,700 companies and 16,000 consultants.
At McKinsey, she was part of the team responsible for setting up the healthcare practice in India. She was also responsible for setting up the Public Health Practice, something else that’s close to her heart, both as an achievement and a legacy.
With Flexing It, Pasricha has been tasked with creating a new segment online as well as evangelizing the concept to companies who tend to have certain set notions about professionals who work flexible hours.
Sripriya Kalyanasundaram,, Vice-president, Delivery, Cognizant
Her parents’ opposition to her moving from Coimbatore to Mumbai to take up a job and a desire to work in the US led to Sripriya working for Dun & Bradstreet. Now, back in India, Sripriya played an important role in setting up Cognizant’s 32,000-strong quality engineering and assurance unit, which services clients across industries and geographies.
From setting up offices in many geographies to focusing on strategic initiatives, Sripriya has played a wide variety of roles in her two decades with the IT firm. She’s come to realise that women have great multitasking ability and that often, they create their own glass ceiling. “We often undermine ourselves and go into a shell. There will be failures, but you have to work through them,” she says.
Shradha Sharma, Founder, Yourstory.com
It might be hard to remember, but in 2008, there wasn’t too much content available online. For Shradha Sharma, it was a leap of faith to make the transition from traditional media to an online platform, focused on telling stories of entrepreneurs.
Today, with investors like Ratan Tata and a team of 100 people, she stands validated. “There will always be naysayers, but they are the best thing to happen to you. On days when you want to sleep an extra hour, you’ll be motivated to run an extra mile instead,” she says.
Sharma believes results come from doing the same thing day after day, month on month, rather than doing something extraordinary. Whatever downtime she has, is spent with her two dogs at home. “As a woman, you have to learn to appreciate and love yourself.We need a sense of validation and that has to come from within us,” she says.
Priyanka Aggarwal, Partner and Director-Healthcare, Boston Consulting Group
Reflecting back on her 16-odd years as a consultant, Priyanka Aggarwal attributes her success to being able to constantly reinvent herself and find something that’s been fulfilling. The first diversity partner at the consulting firm, Aggarwal is a big advocate of helping women succeed in the corporate world.
Her work is primarily in the field of healthcare, and Aggarwal says that if you can retain a curiosity about what you do and find your passion, work doesn’t feel like a burden. Her current passion is making healthcare more patient-centric, and she’s working at building more awareness about the patients perspective and actively working on how technology can be leveraged to transform healthcare in India.
All her free time is spent with her two kids – doing maths puzzles and reading Enid Blyton with her daughter, and learning about cricket from her son. She counts BCG India senior partners Arindam Mukherjee and Janmejaya Sinha among her mentors, who helped her shape her own path when she joined the firm five years ago.
Deepika Arora, Regional Vice-president, Eurasia, Wyndham Hotels
After graduating with a masters from the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi, Deepika Arora joined Jurong Consultants as a landscape architect, but it quickly became obvious her talents lay elsewhere. “The firm started using me in business development, since it was new to India. I’ve always been good at building relationships,” she says.
After two years, Arora moved to CPG Consultants, another Singaporean firm, and then to Jones Lang LaSalle where she was a consultant to several hotel chains. That’s when she decided she wanted a career in the hotel industry and joined Hilton Worldwide. “I loved the travel, the great food and the interesting people you get to meet in the hotel industry. I came from a different professional background so I had to learn the ropes. It was an exciting time for me,” she says.
Arora has now spent six years expanding the operations at the Wyndham Hotels group, whose brands include the Ramada, Howard Johnson’s and Day’s Inn. The group has so far followed a franchisee model in India but Arora plans to transition to managing hotels carrying the group’s brand names.
Nadia Chauhan, Joint Managing Director and Chief Marketing Officer, Parle Agro
Unlike most of her contemporaries, Nadia Chauhan never took time to go to business school. She started working at Parle Agro as a student at HR College of Commerce and joined the family business full-time after graduating.
“Those days, we were simply known as the Frooti company. I started my career with Frooti, but I thought we should have a larger identity as a beverage company,” she says.
Though Frooti still remains the bestseller, Chauhan has expanded Parle Agro’s portfolio to include beverage brands like LMN, Appy and Grappo Fizz, as well as a baked snack called Hippo. She has a stated goal of turning Parle Agro into a Rs 5,000 crore company by 2018 and says, “We’re on track to achieve that goal.” As the company grows in complexity and scale, Chauhan has been managing internal systems to cope with change, using information technology as a tool for transformation.
Prabha Narasimhan, Vice-President, Skin Care & Colours, Hindustan Unilever
Her long stint at Hindustan Unilever in a range of geographies hasn’t just added to her skillset, but also taught Prabha Narasimhan things about herself.
“Becoming the regional manager of a branch taught me how to lead large teams and work with people whose subject matter expertise was so much higher than my own,” she says.
One of her biggest learnings over the years has been the realisation that while you cannot have it all, there will also be a feeling that you are either neglecting your career or your family. “One has to keep making choices on an everyday basis. However, over a period of time they can all be made to work successfully to achieve harmony in one’s life,” she says. Narasimhan is a strong believer in having a strong network of women at work who always have your back.
Emrana Sheikh, HR Head, Asian Paints
In her first job at FedEx India, Emrana Sheikh was promoted to a role that had her travelling three weeks a month. This was when she had her first child and the work-life balance situation became increasingly precarious. She decided to move to an Indian company.
“As a woman, it’s normal for certain life stages to create short dial-down phases in our career but there are oceans of opportunities to bounce back with,” she says. Her international experience has stood Sheikh in good stead. At Asian Paints, she looks after the HR function not just in India, but in the company’s subsidiaries in 17 countries.
Anusha Shetty, Co-founder and CEO, Autumn Worldwide
The turning point in Anusha Shetty’s career was when she joined Euro RSCG with Intel as her client. “Working with a hardcore tech company was new. Advertising people were not attuned to it then,” she says.
Shetty’s next job as communications head for Euclid Inc took her to Silicon Valley. Her first child was born in the USA and she returned to Bangalore soon after, to join Honeywell as corporate communications head. But the start-up culture she had imbibed in Silicon Valley stayed with her and it wasn’t long before she quit her job to start Autumn Worldwide, a digital advertising firm, focused on the social media space.
Pavitra Singh, Associate Director, PepsiCo India
Graduating from b-school in 2001, at the height of the dot-com crash, Pavitra Singh lost her campus placement offer with a leading IT company and had to settle for a job in a small computer training centre instead. The shock of it taught her an abiding lesson. “It made me more grounded,” she says. “I realized nothing is permanent and you can’t take things for granted.”
Six months later, Singh landed a job with American Express, in its nascent BPO operation. “It got me back to HR, which was my b-school specialization,” she says. It was only when she joined Pepsico in 2006 that Singh got an opportunity to work on more sophisticated aspects of HR.
She’s worked on diversity and inclusion policies, helping women move from middle to senior management levels (40% of PepsiCo India’s Executive Committee now comprises women). She launched the innovative Become Indra’s Advisor Contest on Indian campuses, where the winners were flown to New York to present their ideas to Indra Nooyi. “I’ve played so many roles in Pepsi and each one has been like a new job,” she says.
Abanti Sankaranarayan, Chief Strategy & Corporate Relations Officer, United Spirits
The liquor industry is generally not perceived to be big on women, so when Abanti Sankaranarayan joined Diageo India after eight years with the Tatas, many were surprised. But Abanti doesn’t think of it as an exceptional career move.
Joining the Tata Administrative Service after graduating from IIMA, she had worked with the Taj brand in the UK and the USA before moving to Tata Global Beverages in her last year at the Tata Group, and she saw parallels between her previous career and her new one. “Diageo is a lifestyle company. I joined as marketing director, with some truly iconic brands like Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff in my portfolio.”
Sankaranarayan was promoted to managing director within two years. “I grew as a leader during that period. I was in a role that gave me endto-end perspective. I learnt the importance of government policy and how critical talent is for the success of an organization,” she says.
After the merger of Diageo India with United Spirits, Sankaranarayan continues to look after the luxury brands in the company’s portfolio.
Anu Aggarwal, Senior Executive VP, Kotak Mahindra Bank
Being recruited by Citibank on day one of placements at Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management is no small achievement and Anu Aggarwal still considers it the turning point in her career. After 12 years at Citi, where she worked primarily in risk management, Aggarwal moved to Kotak Mahindra Bank, which then had a nascent corporate banking practice, ready to take off. “Kotak was then, and continues to be, a very entrepreneurial organization.
It’s a great place to work for people who are driven.” At Kotak, Aggarwal is in charge of a new business group that integrates the corporate banking and investment banking requirements of 25 large clients.
The model has proved highly successful. Aggarwal is known to live and breathe banking and loves to discuss her work with her young daughter at home. “I outsource all work at home and spend all my time with my husband and daughter,” she says.
Born and raised in Chandigarh, Aggarwal financially supports a school for underprivileged children in the nearby village of Jagatpura, a project that her brother, who is based in Chandigarh, oversees.
Mrinalini Mirchandani, Partner, McKinsey & Company
In a career spanning consulting, investment banking and headhunting, there’s been one common thread for Mrinalini Mirchandani: healthcare. “When you have a demanding career and there are so many other demands on your time, it helps to have a sense of purpose,” she says.
“I developed a passion for the healthcare industry in my first year at McKinsey, and that’s stayed with me.” From McKinsey, Mirchandani moved to DSP Merrill Lynch, just ahead of the collapse of Lehman, a bad time for investment banking. “At Merrill, I learnt the importance of resilience,” she says. “I also learnt how crucial growth is to survival.” Then, in a surprise move, she moved to Egon Zehnder. “By then, I had come to the conclusion that leadership mattered as much as finance or strategy.”
Mirchandani has rejoined McKinsey, where she is a member of the global pharma and healthcare practice.
Yaquta Mandviwala, Partner, Bain & Company India
After a two-year stint at Citibank, her first job after graduating from IIM Calcutta, Yaquta Mandviwala joined Monitor Group, the consulting firm famously set up by Harvard strategy guru Michael Porter. Consulting assignments from MNC clients took her to Europe and the Middle East and Mandviwala quickly developed a passion for the job. “I love solving problems, which is what consulting is largely about,” she says.
Joining Bain & Co India as project manager in 2010, Mandviwala has now been made Partner, the first woman to be promoted to this level. She’s the head of Women@Bain and member of the Global Women’s Leadership Council, which works on promoting gender diversity in the firm. She’s also worked pro bono on preparing a five-year strategy document for her alma mater, along with Bain India chairman Sri Rajan, who is also an alumnus of IIM Calcutta.
Karuna Nundy, Advocate, Supreme Court of India
She’s best known for fighting constitutional and human rights cases, but Karuna Nundy is also famous in the corporate world for her expertise in commercial law. She has represented a number of Indian and multinational companies in arbitration cases, corporate governance disputes and argued tax cases in the Supreme Court. “I enjoy the mathematical logic that goes with tax litigation,” she says. “There are so many fairly basic issues that are still being decided through these cases.”
Today, corporates also call Nundy for help in framing policies to prevent sexual harassment in the work place. The past decade has seen an increasing number of sexual harassment cases go up to the Supreme Court and companies are now looking to protect themselves from such expensive litigation. Nundy says she doesn’t entertain those that are entirely self-serving on these issues: “The companies that call me are the progressive ones who genuinely want to make sure there is no sexual harassment in their organisations.”
Bindu Ananth, Chair, IFMR Trust
ICICI Bank in 2001 might not have been the obvious choice as a place for launching a career in rural development. But Bindu Ananth, freshly graduated frm IRMA, decided to start her career from ICICI’s nascent micro finance practice and she has no reason to regret it. “ICICI taught me to think big, solve problems with scale. And Nachiket Mor was a great boss,” she says.
After seven years at ICICI, Ananth took a two-year sabbatical to go to Harvard’s John F Kennedy School of Government. Soon after returning, she launched IFMR Trust. Ananth believes NGO promoters today can’t afford to go it alone as they may have in the past. “You need to build a community of peers and mentors who will support you and be brutally honest as well,” she says.
Amrita Pandey, Vice-president, Walt Disney Company (India)
Two years into her first job at UTV Motion Pictures, Amrita Pandey was assigned to work on Rang de Basanti . She was responsible for everything, starting from green lighting to tracking the budget to marketing, distribution and release. “We were a small team then, just starting out in the movie business. So there was a lot of learning,” she says.
UTV has since merged into Disney and like many a movie character, Pandey has developed with time, starting off as a shy youngster and growing into a go-getter who is not afraid to ask for what she wants. “You can’t sit and wait for something to happen. If you go ask for what you want, there’s a 50% chance you’ll get it. But you also have to be prepared to hear ‘no’,” she says.
Lavanya Nalli, Vice-chairman, Nalli Group
The Nalli brand is synonymous with silk saris in South India, and Lavanya Nalli was quite proud to join the family business after graduating with a degree in computer science from Anna University in Chennai. Four years later, she decided she needed to broaden her horizons.
First she went to Harvard for an MBA and followed this up with a two-year stint with McKinsey & Co in Chicago. Returning to India, she worked briefly with on-line fashion retailer Myntra before returning to the family business.
Since then, Nalli has set her mind to transforming the 88-year-old retail chain for modern times. Her projects include Nalli Next, which is for the new-age working woman. She’s also lent her name to a range of saris, with which she wants to bridge the gap between designer wear and mass market retailing.
How we did it
Spencer Stuart and The Economic Times partnered for the second consecutive year to arrive at a final list of top women professionals. The study began by assembling a panel of highly accomplished jury members, responsible for the evaluation of India’s top women leaders. The methodology comprised two phases: research and assessment.
An initial list of 100 women leaders from corporate India was drawn up and this was condensed on the basis of in-depth market referencing and due diligence to a long list of 55, which was presented to the jury. The long list comprised a diverse mix of business professionals, entrepreneurs and owner professionals across a variety of industries.
A rigorous and systematic assessment process was carried out on the long list using criteria, predefined by the jury that focused on primarily four areas: business impact and ethics, contribution to the ecosystem and relative position in the industry. In the final jury meeting, each business leader was profiled and discussed in detail. Given the high quality of profiles on the shortlist, the jury had the difficult task of arriving at the final list of 34 Women Ahead.
