Arundhati Bhattacharya, the chairperson of country's largest bank SBI, has been named as the most-powerful woman in business in India by Fortune magazine.
ICICI Bank's Chanda Kochhar and Shikha Sharma of Axis Bank follow Bhattacharya at the second and the third place respectively.
In the Fortune India list of 50 most-powerful businesswomen, there are as many as eight new entrants.
Interestingly, two first timers-- Bhattacharya and Nishi Vasudeva, the Chairperson and Managing Director at HPCL (fourth place)-- have made a cut into the top 10.
Bhattacharya made to number one spot "due to her relentless fight against bad loans. Since she took over a year or so ago, she has improved assets quality, cut costs and recapitalised SBI (State Bank of India)."
"That's no mean feat when you consider that SBI has 190 foreign offices, a market cap of Rs 1.9 lakh crore and 2,22,033 employees," Fortune India noted.
These powerful women represent various sectors such as banking, finance, healthcare, media, fashion and entertainment.
Other new entrants are Shahnaz Husain, Founder of Shahnaz Group of Companies; Zarin Daruwala, President wholesale banking ICICI Bank; Archana Hingorani, CEO and ED IL&FS Investment Managers; Ireena Vittal, Management Consultant Independent Director; Vani Kola, MD Kalaari Capital and Valerie Wagoner, MD Zipdial.
"The country's most powerful women in business once again show that people may change, but the idea of power does not," the magazine noted.
The other women who figure in the top 10 are Zia Mody Co-founder AZB Partners; Mallika Srinivasan CEO of TAFE and Aruna Jayanthi CEO of Capgemini India; Preetha Reddy, MD, Apollo Hospital Enterprise; Kiran Mazumdar Shaw chairperson and MD at Biocon and Shobhana Bhartia, chairperson, HT Media.
