Along with US Vice President Kamala Harris and musician Taylor Swift, Nirmala Sitharaman, the Minister of Finance, came in at number thirty-two on Forbes’ list of the world’s most powerful women.
Three additional Indian women are listed on the list: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, the creator of Biocon (ranked 76), Soma Mondal, the chairperson of Steel Authority of India (ranked 70), and Roshni Nadar Malhotra, the CEO of HCL Corporation (ranked 60).
Head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen topped the list, with Christine Lagarde of the European Central Bank coming in second and US Vice President Kamala Harris third.
In May 2019, Ms. Sitharaman led the Corporate Affairs ministry and was appointed as India’s first full-time finance minister. Prior to entering politics, she worked for the BBC World Service and the Agricultural Engineers Association in the UK, according to Forbes. She served on the National Commission for Women as well.
Ms. Malhotra is the daughter of billionaire Shiv Nadar, the founder of HCL. According to Forbes, she is in charge of all strategic choices made by HCL Technologies as chairperson. In July 2020, she succeeded her father in the position.
According to Forbes, Ms. Mondal is the first female chairman of the state-run Steel Authority of India (SAIL). Her profile stated that since taking over in 2021, she has guided the steelmaker to unprecedented levels of success, with the company’s profits tripling within her first year in charge.
According to Forbes, Ms. Mazumdar-Shaw is among the wealthiest self-made women in India. Having started the biopharmaceutical company Biocon in 1978, she is the owner of the largest insulin factory in Asia, located in the Johor region of Malaysia.
