75 Leaders Among BW Most Influential Women 2022
There is a clear case of growth for the Indian economy on the whole if more women can participate in the workforce. To this effect, the government has launched multiple schemes over to years to enable and empower women in their early childhood, education, safety and security, work-life and more. These have been made prevalent across urban and rural India.
Unfortunately, however, India shows a drop in this count. As per a Ministry of Statistics report, the female labour participation rate in India fell to 16.1 per cent during the July-September 2020 quarter. While this was seen as an outcome of the pandemic-induced unemployment crisis, it should be noted this was the lowest among major economies.
India was on a declining trend even before that. According to World Bank estimates, the female labour participation rate in India fell from more than 26 per cent in 2005 to 20.3 per cent in 2019.
This was a concern given the increase in efforts, from both government and India Inc, towards growing India’s women workforce.
This being the big picture, it does not take away from the fact that more women leaders are in fact joining leadership positions in both public and private sectors. More women leaders are seen in politics and governance as well.
The BW Businessworld Most Influential Women 2022 initiative is specifically designed to celebrate the leaders who are breaking barriers and creating an impact not only on their companies and organisations but going beyond on a wider scale.
The list this year, showcasing its high ever number of leaders, is the signature of the growth in women leaders.
The 75 Leaders who are part of the list this year are:
BW Businessworld employed a two-fold process to derive this list of women leaders. The first step was an outreach to the different BW communities and audiences to invite nominations of women leaders who should be part of this list. This was followed by a deliberation of an advisory board comprising senior BW Businessworld and its affiliate communities’ leaders, who then looked at the overall body of work done, and the work done in the previous year to arrive at this list.
BW MOST INFLUENTIAL WOMEN 2022 |
Name Designation
The Illustrious |
1 | Falguni Nayar | CEO, Nykaa |
2 | Hima Kohli | Judge, Supreme Court of India |
3 | Hina Nagarajan | MD & CEO, Diageo India |
4 | Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw | Chairperson & Managing Director, Biocon & Biocon Biologics |
5 | Nirmala Sitharaman | Finance Minister |
6 | Soma Mondal | Chairman, SAIL |
7 | Soumya Swaminathan | Chief Scientist, World Health Organization |
8 | Suchitra Ella | Co-founder & Joint MD, Bharat Biotech International |
9 | Suneeta Reddy | MD, Apollo Hospitals |
10 | Swati Piramal | Vice Chairperson, Piramal Group |
The Trailblazers |
11 | Ajaita Shah | CEO, Frontier Markets & President, Frontier Innovations |
12 | Dilafroze Qazi | Founder & Vice-Chairperson, Srinagar School of Management (SSM) College of Engineering & Technology |
13 | Joyita Mondal | First Transgender Judge, Civil Court |
14 | Shivangi Singh | IAF Pilot |
The High Fliers |
15 | Leena Nair | CEO, Chanel |
16 | Priyanka Chopra | Actor, Producer & Entrepreneur |
17 | Revathi Advaithi | CEO, Flex |
18 | Sharmistha Dubey | CEO, Match Group |
The Culturati |
19 | Anita Dongre | Fashion designer & Founder, House of Anita Dongre |
20 | Dr Rashmi Saluja | Chairperson, REL and CMD, RFL |
21 | Chiki Sarkar | Publisher & Co-Founder, Juggernaut Books |
22 | Dayanita Singh | Photographer |
23 | Ekta Kapoor | CEO, Balaji Telefilms |
24 | Zoya Akhtar | Film director & Screenwriter |
25 | Masaba Gupta | Indian fashion designer |
The Power List |
26 | Aditi Gupta | Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Menstrupedia |
27 | Alka Mittal | Director (HR) and Chairman & Managing Director, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) |
28 | Alka Upadhyaya | Chairperson, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) |
29 | Ankiti Bose | Co-Founder & CEO of Zilingo |
30 | Anshula Kant | MD and CFO, World Bank |
31 | Aparna Purohit | Head of Original Videos, Amazon Prime Video India |
32 | Arundhati Bhattacharya | Chairperson & CEO, Salesforce India |
33 | Debanjali Sengupta | Country Head, Shell Lubricants India |
34 | Divya Gokulnath | Co-Founder, Byju’s |
35 | Geeta Gopinath | First Deputy Managing Director, IMF |
36 | Isha Ambani | Director, Jio |
37 | Maithali Raj | Test & ODI Captain, Indian Women’s Cricket Team |
35 | Mira Kulkarni | Chairman & MD, Forest Essentials |
38 | Monika Shergill | Vice President- Content, Netflix India |
39 | Natasha Poonawalla | Executive Director, Serum Institute |
40 | Radhika Jha | Secretary, Govt of Uttarakhand |
41 | Rekha Menon | Chairperson & Senior Managing Director, Accenture In India |
42 | Roshini Nadar Malhotra | Chairperson, HCL Technologies |
43 | Smriti Irani | MoS, Ministry of Women & Child Development |
44 | Sulajja Firodia Motwani | Founder and CEO, Kinetic Green and Vice Chairperson, Kinetic Group |
The Achievers |
45 | Ashu Suyash | Independent Director on the Board of Hindustan Unilever Limited |
47 | Harshbeena Zaveri | MD, NRB Bearings |
48 | Mahima Datla | Managing Director, Biological E |
49 | Mahua Acharya | MD & CEO, Convergence Energy Services |
46 | Dipali Goenka | CEO & Jt. MD, Welspun India |
51 | Nisaba Godrej | Executive Chairperson, Godrej Consumer Products |
54 | Radhika Gupta | CEO, Edelweiss AMC |
55 | Renuka Ramnath | Founder and CEO, Multiples Alternate Asset Management |
56 | Samina Hamied | Executive Vice Chairperson, Cipla |
52 | Pallavi Shroff | Managing Partner, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co. |
53 | Prativa Mohapatra | Vice President & Managing Director, Adobe India |
57 | Suparna Mitra | CEO, Watches & Wearables Division, Titan Company |
58 | Upasana Taku | Director, MobiKwik |
59 | Vibha Padalkar | CEO, HDFC Life |
60 | Zarin Daruwala | Cluster CEO, India & South Asia, Standard Chartered Bank |
The Front Leaders |
61 | Annpurna Devi | MoS, Ministry of Education |
62 | Anupriya Singh Patel | MoS, Ministry of Commerce and Industry |
63 | Anuradha Thakur | Additional Secretary, Ministry of Corporate Affairs |
64 | Atishi Marlena | Politician & MLA, Aam Aadmi Party |
65 | Darshana Vikram Jardosh | MoS, Ministry of Textiles & |
66 | H K Joshi | CMD, The Shipping Corporation of India Ltd. |
69 | Punita Kumar Sinha | Founder, Managing Partner & Chief Investment Officer, Pacific Paradigm Advisors |
67 | Leena Nadan | Secretary, Ministry of Environment , Forest and Climate Change |
70 | Pushpa Subra | Secretary, Ministry of Food Processing Industries |
71 | Renuka Singh Saruta | MoS, Ministry of Tribal Affairs |
72 | Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti | MoS, Ministry of Rural Development |
73 | Sushri Pratima Bhoumik | MoS, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment |
74 | Sushri Shobha Karandlaje | MoS, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare |
75 | Usha Sharma | Chief Secretary, Government of Rajasthan |
