Nita Ambani Declared As Asia’s Most Powerful Businesswoman; 8 Indian Women Appear in Forbes Asia’s Power 50 List
Reliance Industries Chairman and Mukesh Ambani’s wife, Nita Ambani has been declared as Asia’s most powerful businesswoman by Forbes. She has topped Forbes’ list of Asia’s 50 most powerful businesswomen.
Besides a businesswoman, Nita Ambani is also an educationist, philanthropist and a sports enthusiast; and has led Reliance Industries’ CSR activities. Describing her achievements, Forbes said, “In a country where billionaire wives tend to remain in the shadow of their husbands, Nita’s rising profile in the Reliance empire is unusual and earns her a debut spot..”
At #2 position of this power list is State Bank of India chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya; and probably for the first time, two Indian women’s dominate #1 and #2 positions of this list. However, Forbes has clarified that the list has been made alphabetically, and its not a ranking per se.
Overall, there are 8 women featured in this list from various industries including banking, bio-tech, data analytics, textiles, pharma and even wellness and beauty. Women entrepreneurs have been covered from these countries: China, Indonesia, Australia, Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, the Philippines and New Zealand .
Forbes, which is published by Network18 is now owned by Reliance Industries.
These are the Indian women who have been featured:
- Ambiga Dhiraj, CEO of Mu Sigma
- Dipali Goenka, CEO of Welspun India
- Vinita Guptam, CEO of Lupin
- Chanda Kochhar, ICICI Bank Managing Director & CEO
- Vandana Luthra, VLCC Health Care Founder and vice chairman
- Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Biocon Founder, Chairman & Managing Director
Tech Dominates Power 50 List
25% of all women businessmen featured in this list are from technology niche, and this makes an interesting transition, as traditionally, high ranked women businessmen were either from manufacturing or healthcare/fashion.
Some of the powerful women in technology, who featured in this list include:
Jane Yan founder of Venustech, an Internet security firm which handles 80% of China’s Govt. and Military business.
Eva Chen whose company, Trend Micro, handles security of Internet of Things appliances
Lucy Peng, co-founder of Alibaba, launched another startup called Ant which provides financial services; and is now rumored to be valued at $50 billion. She has founded 2 other multi-billion dollar startups
Retail & Manufacturing niche also featured several women businessmen in this power list, which include:
Chadatip Chutrakul of Siam Piwat in Thailand, Sky Park of South Korea’s E-Land, Wendy Pye In New Zealand, whose educational publishing company is enabling children to read and learn.
You can view the entire list of Asia’s 50 Power Businesswomen 2016 here.
[Header Image Source: Getty Images]
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