Lehman Sisters (India)

Indian women (elites) are doing superbly, as may be judged by the 2014 Fortune top-25 list for Asia/Pacific. Worldwide, Indra Nooyi is ranked #3 right after Mary Bara (GE) and Gini Rometty (IBM).

In A/P we have a total of eight Indians out of twenty five. If there is a quibble, there are too many bankers (in the left-liberal world bankers are considered evil) starting with Gail Kelly (Australia, Westpac) at #1.

Then again feminists have forcefully argued that the global recession of 2008 could have been avoided if only there were a band of Lehman Sisters at the steering wheel instead of the mad, bad brother-hood. Taken in that spirit there is much to cheer about the Indian lady-brigade- the Sisters are in charge of half of the assets of the country. It is good to see a world-beating number that you can feel good about. Go team!!!!

In the top ten we have the fav four of Chanda Kochhar (2) of ICICI Bank, Arundhati Bhattacharya (4) of State Bank of India, Nishi Vasudeva (5) of Hindustan Petroleum, and Shikha Sharma (10) of Axis Bank.
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The remaining four are Kiran Mazumdar Shaw (19) of Biocon, Chitra Ramkrishna (22) of National Stock Exchange, Naina Lal Kidwai (23) of Honkong and Shanghai Bank and Mallika Srinivasan (25) of Tractors and Farm Equipment (TAFE).

Unlike the men-list (which we imagine is mostly populated by West Indians), there is only one Marwari (Kochhar) and one Gujarati (Mazumdar).

It was the noted economist Ajit Ranade who pointed out in 2013 that about half of India’s banking assets are under the control of women. In addition to the executives listed above, there is Bank of India headed by Vijay-lakshmi Iyer, Allahabad Bank - Shubha-lakshmi Panse, Bhartiya Mahila Bank - Usha Anantha-subramanian, Royal Bank of Scotland - Meera Sanyal ( ex-head, now Aam Admi Party member).  

Most important, the ranks below are bubbling with women as well, a sign of a strong (future) bench.

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But there is one gender trend in banking that has gone unnoticed — the steady increase in the number of women joining the banking sector. Sample this: At Punjab National Bank, 40-45% of new recruits are women. At Allahabad Bank, that share is 25%, while HDFC Bank says that 40% of its trainees are women. In fact, some of the women executives who took up banking jobs in recent years say that in certain batches their numbers go well past the 50% mark.

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As many as eight Indian women, led by ICICI Bank chief Chanda Kochhar, have made it to the Fortune list of 25 most powerful women "shaping the new world order" in the Asia-Pacific region.
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Kochhar, ranked highest among Indian women, has been ranked second across the region, while three others -- SBI's Arundhati Bhattacharya (4th), HPCL's Nishi Vasudeva (5th) and Axis Bank's Shikha Sharma (10th) -- have also made it to the top-10.
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The list is topped by Australian banking major Westpac's chief Gail Kelly.
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Other Indians on the top-25 list include Biocon chief Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (19th), National Stock Exchange CEO Chitra Ramkrishna (22nd), HSBC's Naina Lal Kidwai (23rd) and TAFE Chairman and CEO Mallika Srinivasan (25th).
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Releasing the latest rankings, the Fortune magazine said that women around the world are continuing to win the top jobs, so much so that more than a third of the women on this Asia-Pacific list are making their debut in the coveted list, including two from India. The two Indian new entrants are Bhattacharya and Vasudeva.
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"More and more businesswomen are taking tougher jobs and helming bigger firms. More than a third of the women on our Asia-Pacific list are making their MPW (most powerful women) debut," Fortune said.
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Among Indians, Bhattacharya is ranked second after Kochhar and is the first woman to hold the three-year post at SBI, who oversees a 208-year-old institution with USD 400 billion in assets and 218,000 employees dispersed among 16,000 bank branches across India.
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On the other hand, Vasudeva, 58, became the first woman to head an Indian oil company and is "and one of only four women to helm a Global Fortune 500 firm in the Asia-Pacific region".
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NSE's Ramakrishna is the only woman on the list heading a stock exchange.
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Meanwhile, PepsiCo's India-born CEO Indra Nooyi has been ranked third among world's most powerful business woman by Fortune in its worldwide list. Nooyi is only Indian-origin woman on this year's global list, which has been topped by IBM Chairman and CEO Ginni Rometty and General Motors CEO Mary Barra.
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Link (1): outlookindia.com

Link (2): timesofindia.com/Women-bankers-Making-capital

Link (3): crisil.com/corporate/Most-Powerful-Women

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regards