BW Businessworld

75 Leaders Among BW Most Influential Women 2022

Showing a marked increase in the women occupying leadership positions in India’s corporate, government and public sector, the Most Influential Women 2022 list celebrates its all time high number of women leaders

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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 

Falguni Nayar 

CEO, Nykaa 

Hima Kohli  

Judge, Supreme Court of India 

Hina Nagarajan 

MD & CEO, Diageo India 

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw 

Chairperson, Biocon 

Nirmala Sitharaman 

Finance Minister 

Soma Mondal 

Chairman, SAIL 

Soumya Swaminathan 

Chief Scientist, World Health Organization 

Suchitra Ella 

Co-founder & Joint MD, Bharat Biotech International 

Suneeta Reddy/ Reddy Sisters 

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 Upadhyay 

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 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 

39 

Natasha Poonawalla 

Executive Director, Serum Institute  

40 

Radhika Jha 

Secretary, Govt of Uttarakhand 

41 

Rekha Menon 

Chairperson & Senior Managing Director, Accenture 

42 

Roshini Nadar 

Chairperson, HCL 

43 

Smriti Irani 

MoS, Ministry of Women & Child Development 

44 

Sulajja Firodia Motwani 

Vice-Chairperson, Kinetic Group & Founder and CEO, Kinetic Green 


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 & Joint MD, Welspun India 

51 

Nisaba Godrej 

 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 

VP & MD 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 

CEO, 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 &
Ministry of Railways 

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