At a time when 49% of Indian women have never accessed Internet, this comes as a gentle reminder that Indian women cannot be taken lightly. In the recent Forbes List of 100 Most Powerful Women, 6 Indians have been included.
These are:
- Arundhati Bhattacharya (SBI chief) (# 30 this year; was ranked 36th last year)
- Chanda Kochhar (ICICI bank head) (#35 this year; was ranked 43rd last year)
- Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (Biocon founder) (#85 this year; was ranked 92nd last year)
- Shobhana Bhartia (HT Media chairperson) (New Entrant)
The remaining two are women of Indian origin:
- Indra Nooyi (PepsiCo Chief )
- Padmasree Warrior (Cisco Chief Technology and Strategy Officer)
About Arundhati Bhattacharya, SBI Chief, Forbes said that she manages a 2,20,000 employees spread across 16,000 branches all over India. With 22 crore customers of SBI, she is responsible for assets worth $400 billion. Forbes also mentioned the fact she pioneered and implemented a unique sabbatical policy for women employees, wherein they can get 2 years of maternity leave.
On the other hand, ICICI Bank head Chanda Kochhar has been appreciated for spreading mobile banking in deep, rural areas, which has brought a unique transformation among Indian women.
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has been appreciated for turning Biocon into India’s largest publicly traded biopharmaceutical company.
Angela Merkel, German chancellor, has topped this list this year. Here is the top 10 list of those women who are considered as the most powerful in the world:
- Angela Merkel (German chancellor)
- Hillary Clinton (US Politician, wife of Bill Clinton and Presidential hopeful for 2016
- Melinda Gates (wife of Bill Gates and philanthropist)
- Janet Yellen (Federal Reserve Chair)
- Mary Barra (GM CEO)
- Christine Lagarde (IMF Chief)
- Dilma Rousseff (Brazilian President)
- Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook COO)
- Susan Wojcicki (YouTube CEO)
- Michelle Obama (wife of Barrack Obama)
Methodology of the Ranking
Forbes has created the following 8 categories for choosing the most eligible women : Billionaires, business, celebrity, finance, media, philanthropy and intergovernmental organizations, politics and technology.
From the initial 300 possible candidates, they narrowed down the list to 100, based on the ranking obtained via four major metrics: money, media presence, spheres of influence and impact.
For each category, there exists different evaluation rules; for example, in case of business, media, technology and finance categories, the money aspect is calculated from their organization’s 2014 revenues. For women from NGOs and Philanthropy category, Forbes calculated the amount which they promised to spent and what they actually spent.
Similarly, for Media metrics, they calculated the number of followers and fans which each candidate has on social media. In order to measure the sphere of impact and influence, Forbes found out how much impact they were able to make on the society in general, using the power they harness.
You can view the entire list of the 100 most powerful women here.
