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Now that Business Today has unveiled its latest list of The 25 Most Powerful Women in Indian Business (see issue dated 26 September, 2004), maybe there's more you want to know. In no particular order, here go the details: 1. RENU KARNAD, In 1978, Renu Karnad joined Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) as a senior assistant, mind you, not even as an officer. Twenty-six years later, she might be in a position to succeed Deepak Parekh as chairman of the country's largest housing finance company. Karnad will, however, scoff at any such talk, saying she is a mere No.3 in the organization, and that she reports to Keki Mistry, who is managing director. In any case, Karnad has made it to the BT's list of powerful women in business not just because she may succeed 60-year old Parekh one day (he has recently got a 3-year extension), but the fact that she is currently in charge of HDFC's core business -- both retail and corporate lending operations (Mistry controls treasury and funding operations). Last year, Karnad's team disbursed loans of Rs 12,697 crore, 28 per cent more than the previous year, which translates into a 40 per cent marketshare. Still, HDFC's non-performing assets (NPA) is the lowest in the industry, 0.89 per cent. "We are very careful in sanctioning loans. Our credit checks are thorough," says Karnad. But her biggest challenge at HDFC has been to convert the monopoly into a marketing-oriented company especially when the rate wars and undercutting became the order of the day in the housing finance business. "We very quickly adapted to the changed business environment," she says. This is one of the reasons Karnad, without fancy MBA or finance degrees to boast of, unlike her counterparts at rival ICICI Bank, made it to HDFC's top management (she became a board member of HDFC three years ago and is also on the board of 11 other companies). Karnad now wants to go a step further. She recently set up a separate distribution arm, Home Loan Services India Private Ltd, to push home loan products (also other financial products like insurance and mutual funds at a later stage) to smaller towns and rural areas. "Distribution is the key now. The way we did business has completely changed," shrugs Karnad, who spends most of her time on conference calls with the regional and branch heads on achievement of financial goals and targets. The unassuming Karnad doesn't sit in her headquarters, Mumbai, but is based in Delhi (her husband Bharat Karnad, a journalist-turned-strategic affairs expert, is working as a professor with the capital's Centre for Policy Research). But that's not a handicap. Karnad also wields her power as a chief interlocutor of HDFC with the government (think finance ministry) and the regulator (National Housing Bank). Oh, and in case you wondered about Karnad's educational qualifications, they're impressive enough for any banker. She has an L.L.B. from the University of Bombay and an M.A. in Economics from Delhi School of Economics (DSE), and has been Pravin Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School of International Affairs, Princeton University. 2. PREETHA REDDY, The first daughter of the founder of Apollo Hospitals, Dr Prathap Reddy, got into the hospitals business quite by accident. Artistically inclined (she finished school from Kalakshetra, the famous school started by Rukmini Arundale), she was understandably fond of dancing, and even today has interesting art objects strewn about her house. Reddy does not go for very expensive collectors' items, but is more inclined towards what appeals to her visually, more basic than abstract. But that inclination did not alter her educational pursuits. She opted for a chemistry course in college, and got married while still there. After that, she did not join Apollo Hospitals till 1989 - some ten years after having stayed home. Her younger sisters, meanwhile, had joined the business before her - but when sister Sangeetha got married and moved to Hyderabad, Preetha agreed to play replacement. Not that Reddy was totally unfamiliar with the hospital business. It has been a family preoccupation. "After school, we used to go to HM Hospital where my father used to work, and watch how health care delivery was done," she recalls. While that may have made her familiar with hospitals and administration, managing a business was something altogether different. "I did not have the advantages of a B-school student, all my learning came from the workplace - I learnt hands-on.'' Till today, she remains a hands-on person taking care to listen and learn from people more `senior' in experience. Apollo Hospitals, meanwhile, has been an enormous success in its role as a private hospital offering quality healthcare services in a market dogged by shoddiness and apathy. "We have always had healthcare delivery as our vision, but we were also running a business. We had banks and other investors who had to have continued confidence in us and could not afford to be careless," says the lady who joined as Deputy Managing Director and became Managing Director five years later, in 1994. From Rs 110 crore when she took over, the business has grown to Rs 500 crore last year. Along the way, Apollo helped initiate the legislation for cadaver organ transplant, and insurance third party administration, and it is fighting to have the industry defined as an 'infrastructure' one. Reddy has also notched up successes in hospital networking, telemedicine, hospital management, Day Care Clinics, staff training colleges, Hospital BPO and pharmacy retailing. Typical of her style, Reddy does not hog all the credit. "We work as a team, and my father continues to be the decision maker," she says. Time for family? She doesn't compromise on any of that. Her husband is the chairman of the board of trustees at the famous Kapaleeshwarar temple, and she helps with the work this involves. Her two sons, meanwhile, are studying overseas. 3. RENUKA RAMNATH, Renuka Ramnath has helped shake the private equity landscape of India over the past year or so. Having scripted a blueprint for innovative investment transactions, she has some eight big deals to her credit, including capacity-expansion investments in such firms as Welspun and Samtel, some real estate deals, buyouts and restructuring initiatives. With $400 million under management, ICICI Venture is big on the investment map of the country. In May this year, its India Advantage Fund raised $240 million, some 50 per cent above the set target. Ramnath is unfazed by this success. "It is not just one fund story," she says, "By making the right investment, nurturing those companies in the right direction, we enjoy trust and credibility with investors." It helps, of course, that she adds to that credibility. Armed with a BE followed by an MBA from Mumbai's Chetna College, Ramnath began her career with ICICI in the merchant banking division in 1986. When it was spun off into a separate joint venture with JP Morgan, ICICI Securities, she went on to head the corporate finance and equities business. She returned to ICICI in 1997 to set up structured finance business. In 1999, she took a break to do a three month advanced management programme at Harvard. On her return to India, E-commerce was hotting up and Ramnath too wanted to do something different, and she went on to head the e-commerce initiatives of ICICI as managing director of ICICI Eco-net. In early 2001 when Eco-Net merged with ICICI Venture, Ramnath was the CEO of the new outfit. Three years later, at ICICI Venture, Ramnath has managed to take the company with 40 professionals on a different platform to offer win-win solutions. The key challenge for Ramnath today is creating a healthy platform for private equity. As of now, Ramnath and her team are making investments in broad areas across businesses, as she does not see enough depth to have focused funds for each of the chosen sectors. However, going forward, says Ramnath, "Each of the saplings (business areas) having a potential to be a big banyan tree in the future." 4. ANU AGA, Known above all for speaking up when it matters, Arnavaj 'Anu' Aga, 62, has already earned the title of senior statesperson in business. And now, it's time for her to hand over charge of Thermax India, her family business, to her daughter Meher Pudumjee, who shall be anointed chairperson in succession. The Pune-based energy and environmental engineering major is a few months into Project Evergreen, a McKinsey assisted corporate transformation that'll propel the corporate it into the global marketplace. " We aim to double our turnover and triple our profits in the next three years" says Aga. But robust growth and hard numbers aside, what the soft-spoken Aga-who took over a mere three days after her husband and Thermax founder Rohinton Aga's untimely death----will be remembered for is creating a corporate with a conscience. Be it putting aside one per cent of its profits for social causes or contributing generously towards beautifying its hometown Pune, Aga's leadership ensured that social responsibility at Thermax was more than just a lofty-sounding platitude. A firm believer in personal power (as opposed to positional power), Aga has acquired rare stature in India Inc for her firmly held values. Truth, fairness, transparency and corporate ethics are dear to her not just for personal but strategic reasons as well. To her, it's a better way to run a business. An Economics graduate and post-graduate from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), her life's also a personal testament on how to overcome adversity and hardships with great equanimity. "I feel very blessed, every time something dear has been taken away, a lot of good has been given in return." Aga is a regular with Vipassana meditation, and says it has helped her keep in touch with her inner voice. And when it speaks, the mild-mannered Aga acts; whatever be the consequences. Like when she voiced her firm criticism of the way the government had handled the Gujarat riots of 2002. Or the letter from an anonymous shareholder that caused her to put aside her grief and focus on Thermax, ailing after its founder's death. "Children, women's issues and communal harmony are very dear to me," says Aga, intend to carrying on the good work long after retirement. 5. SULAJJA FIRODIA MOTWANI, Bikes and this 34-year old have always been inseparable. It was when gunning a Ducati down Berkeley, California, that she met her husband, Manish, and it was motorcycles again that helped turn around the fortunes of a jaded moped-maker, Kinetic Engineering. Joint managing director Sulajja Firodia Motwani still loves test-riding her products, though not as often as she would like. "We're in the midst of new and exciting opportunities that'll transform the face of the group," she says. Outsourcing is one such niche where Kinetic, leveraging its design, tooling and expert manufacturing facilities, will supply engine components to global businesses. An order has already been bagged to supply parts for something even more adventurous than motorbikes-speedboats. "The new businesses should contribute at least Rs 25 crore by the end of the year," states Motwani, who first name incidentally translates as 'beautifully shy'. The other big project, which has the former financial consultant excited, is the humble scooter. Kinetic has just acquired 7 product lines from Italian scooter designer Italjet. Ranging from 50-cc to 250 cc engine capacities, these are 'stylish kick-ass bikes', as she puts it, that'll transform scootering in India. Such confident pronouncements are recent. When she came aboard around seven years ago, Kinetic's joint venture with Honda was floundering. But the company's chief Arun Firodia took a calculated chance and entrusted Kinetic---known chiefly for its Luna moped----to his eldest daughter, Sulajja. It was a move that paid off handsomely. Motwani, a scuba-diving, kick-boxing MBA from Carnegie Mellon University, was exactly the kind of fresh force the Pune-based engineering firm needed. She and her team has since grown the core business, diversified into new profitable areas and even begun making global market inroads. Motwani has instilled the firm with the youthful verve of ideas, enthusiasm and entrepreneurial spunk. Inspired by her late grandfather, she's turning an inward-looking family business into a global brand. With her infectious can-do will-do spirit, she's roped in siblings Vismaya and Ajinkya, and also bought down the average age of senior managers to below 40. Today the Kinetic stable boasts of brands like Aquila, a technical collaboration with Hyosoung, South Korea, Boss and Velocity. Another limited edition 250-cc sports bike, Comet, is expected later this year. "I'm a restless, on-the-go kind of person," she confides, "I'm always looking forward to the next thing." And with Motwani, one never knows what that might be. 6. HEMA RAVICHANDAR, This PGDM from IIM (A) and graduate from Stella Mary's College makes it sound easy. Processing a million job applications every year. And that---to recruit some 10,000. But as HR head of India's most sought after workplace, and fastest growing IT company, Infosys, that's just something to shrug at. In the last two quarters alone, Infosys has been adding people at the rate of nearly 1,000 people per month. And, despite all the criticism of its narrow bandwidth of recruits and alleged cultural uniformity, it now has employees from 33 different nationalities. The company has been consistently rated as the Best Employer (twice by Business Today itself) in the country. As someone who's seen the company blaze its way ahead from a 250-person outfit with sales of Rs 5 crore in 1992 to the 30,000-plus people Rs 5,000-crore organization it now is, Ravichandar is already a recruiting legend. And that's not all she does, naturally, as HR head. Her other functions include organisational effectiveness initiatives, Learning and Development, Compensation and Benefits, Recruitment, Employee Relations and Visas and Work Permits. She is responsible for ensuring that HR functions at Infosys are aligned smoothly to business requirements. It may surprise you to know that when Hema decided to join Infosys in 1992, it was something of a gamble. After IIM-A, she had joined Motor Industries Company, a part of Bosch, Germany. MICO at that point of time was one of the bluest of blue chips and Hema by 1992 was heading the HR function for around 2,500 people. A meeting in January 1992 with Infosys founders Narayana Murthy and Nandan Nilekani however changed all that. "There was this vision, energy and this commitment which attracted me to the company. I shifted from managing 2,500 people to 250. Lot of people said that it was a mistake. MICO already had a turnover of several hundred crores while Infosys was a Rs 5 crore company." It's a decision that now belongs to Infosys lore. For it put Ravichandar at the helm of a phenomenal expansion of HR capabilities, aided by new-age people policies. "Narayana Murthy believed in creating wealth, sharing wealth. We have introduced countless number of innovative HR practices, which other organizations have implemented earlier. What makes me even more happy is that unlike in the past where we just used to be leaders in India we are setting global benchmarks now in HR practices," says Hema. "We worried in 1992 when 40 new people joined in a single day, when our employee base was 250 people. That meant every sixth employee was new. In the late 1990s, we worried when 250 people joined every month. Now we have close to 1,000 people joining every month. So scale and maintaining the unique DNA is a very huge challenge," admits Hema. It has not always been smooth. In 1996, she took a two-year break to spend some time with her two children, aged 4 and 8. During this time she ran Empower Consultants, an HR consultancy, but chose to return in 1998 to Infosys, just as it approached escape velocity to hit is current orbit of global fame. 7. PRIYA PAUL, For Priya Paul, the last year has moved at a frantic pace. She has overseen modifications at group hotels in Delhi, Kolkata and Vishakapatnam, and seen occupancy rates in the high 90s across all properties. In the midst of all this, she also managed to find to spare some time to get married. "It's been an exciting time, business has been amazing," she says. The hotel industry is a rather thankless industry to work in, but Paul is having fun. The flagship Park Hotel in Delhi has seen major design improvements over the past year. Gone are the dull interiors. Instead, you have bright fuchsia and reds, with beaded glass curtains. Quite obviously a woman's touch. Always a stickler for details, when BT went to meet Paul, she was busy selecting fabrics and glassware for the restaurants at the hotels. "The industry which had seen a downturn over the past few years has finally begun to pick up, and what we are experiencing is that there are certainly not enough rooms to keep up," says Paul. She believes that if India is to maintain seven to eight per cent growth, rooms have to be added rapidly. But how many of those rooms will Paul add? "We are always looking at opportunities to expand, but we also have a philosophy to maintain, we will not blindly expand," she answers. So, what is this 'philosophy' guiding The Park? "Tough question," she replies, laughing. "In essence, we are a collection of luxury boutique hotels, high on creativity, and do things differently. We try to make things more vibrant for our guests." A reference, perhaps, to such ideas as the innovative series of offbeat talks the hotel had once organized in Delhi to give itself an edge of eclectic charm. Yet, she has no plans of taking on the big boys---Taj, Oberoi and ITC. She is comfortable in the Park's own special niche, she believes that the brand will always hold special meaning to its guests. While modifying the 'original' Park Hotel on Kolkata's posh Park Street, Paul is also behind the improvement of another Kolkata institution --- Flury's. "The patties and pastries are still world famous, but we are investing in a new factory and maybe even look at expansion." She speaks with the true Flury's devotion of a former student of Loreto Convent and La Martinere, Calcutta. But has marriage changed things for Paul? "Not much, actually. I have a very supportive husband and though I divide my month equally between Chennai and Delhi, we do get some time together every weekend. In fact, I ensure that my Sundays are purely for family time, I hate going out on Sundays." And in the little time she gets to herself, Paul says that she tries to keep up with her reading, and she reads the occasional French novel as well. "When I went to college in the US, I knew that I would end up in business," she reminisces, "so my major in economics was decided. But because I went to Wellesley, which is a liberal arts college, I did learn French, and I am glad that I did." 8. MALLIKA SRINIVASAN, For Mallika Srinivasan, lessons can be learnt from anywhere, provided there is a willingness to keep one's mind open. She is quick to appreciate the adaptability of the kirana shop down the road that has started catering to the requirements of Japanese, Korean, Italian, German and other overseas customers. She also heaps praise on an enterprise such as Office Tiger, now 12,000 people strong. She is good at networking too, which helped her keep pulse of competition, especially during the long business downturn that lasted up to mid 2002-03. Survival ideas have been her strong point. When the market got squeezed so much that it hurt, she decided to cut production, preferring to take a topline hit than be left with bad debts from the market. "We have always been profit making, even in the bad years," she says. Financial discipline, to her, is of the utmost importance. When the industry finally started looking up, Tafe quickly went ahead and strengthened its retailers to enthuse them to sell more. Tafe closed last year on Rs 804 crore, and hopes to end this year on Rs 1,005 crore. "The environment has changed so much that despite downturns there are newer and more interesting products coming into the market - and we have to counter the launches with our own," she says. A launch of three new variants and at least a new platform should be taken for granted every year. The Samrat was the first platform (indigenously developed), and since then, Tafe has learnt and grown from the experience. Today, there are special orchard tractors, special paddy tractors and others. The most significant achievement of the last year was the maturity of the systems that were put in place a couple of years ago. These, set up with the help of Warwick Manufacturing Group, have fine-tuned every person in Tafe to the `Vision to Reality' plan. Tafe's vision: to be the first choice of farmers in India, while making international inroads. Srinivasan has fine-tuned operations at Tafe, and is getting ready to work on its growth strategy. Fresh investments are being made to ensure export growth, and she is also paying a closer look to her other group companies. The engineering plastics division, which had been doing well, is now being given greater thrust. So also Tafe Access, another group outfit. "Sometimes the smallest hints could be the most significant," she says, recalling her lunch with Aditya Birla years ago. After quizzing her about her new business (engineering plastics), Birla casually told her that the new factory should work three shifts, 24 by 7, and that she should not allow excuses from her managers to come in the way of this. Srinivasan followed the advice, and this division has been busy cranking out supplies almost non-stop. 9. CHANDA KOCHHAR, Having carved a 33-per cent market share for ICICI Bank's retail banking business, Chanda Kochhar, who spearheads the retail effort, has become one of the country's most closely watched banker. The challenge, now, is to ascend the next level. "Remaining a leader is not just about market shares but about quality too," says Kochhar. And she is looking beyond the banking sector for best practices. In the last one year, Kochhar and her team have been to the shop floor of Hyundai plant and the Ford factory studying assembly line operations, learnt service orientation from Jet Airways or attitude to customer service from Australian banks so as to emulate the best practices. Or deriving learning from retail stores like Wal-Mart on how shelf space is occupied, or from a logistics company on how to move paper fast. Last year, the bank implemented the Japanese manufacturing practice of 5S for bank branches, six sigma initiatives for cash delivery processes and rolling out training programmes on attitude to customer service across the bank branches It was in July 2000 that Kochhar, a
corporate banker with a management degree from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of
Management Studies, Mumbai, took chare of the bank's retail push----as
managing director of ICICI Home Finance and ICICI Personal Financial
services. It was quite a change. From handling 200 corporate customers to
handling millions of customers, from 5 offices to 450 branches and 1,700
ATMs, from multi-crore transactions to millions of small disbursements.
But for Kochhar, who has over the last 20 years at ICICI Bank moved across
various businesses, retail was a new kick. Market leadership means a lot. "Since leadership brings with it huge economies of scale and cost competitiveness, ICICI Bank is able to drive the market, determine trends and in fact change the landscape of consumer finance," she explains, still keen on changing the rules of the game. Just how well she succeeds could determine whether she pips Nachiket Mor, other executive director at ICICI Bank, to succeed K V Kamath at the ICICI Bank. 10. ZIA MODY, Zia Mody is a lawyer. She has an LLB from Cambridge, and LLM from Harvard, and is on the New York bar. She is no ordinary lawyer. And that's because her law firm, AZB & Partners, has been in the thick of virtually every big M&A deal or cross-border action over the last one year. The firm advised Tata Steel on its acquisition of steel business of NatSteel for $285 million. It represented DirectTV Group Inc with regard to the disinvestment of its controlling equity stake in Hughes Software (the big M&A deal in IT). It advised Tata Motors in its acquisition of Daewoo Commercial Vehicles in Korea. And it represented Apollo Tyres in connection with its deal with Michelin. Mody, who is attorney general Soli Sorabjee's daughter, by the way, is also legal consultant to several investment banks, including JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs. She advises MNCs on joint ventures, licensing, works with foreign institutional investors and venture funds on investments in India. Starting her career with a New York law firm Baker and McKinsey about 20 years ago, Mody moved to India and started court practice. Later, "getting fed up of waiting in the court for matters to reach" and as India liberalized, she spotted an opportunity in advising foreign firms on their entry to India, and shifted to chamber practice. The firm kept growing. As the practice grew, the Chambers of Zia Mody added partners like Behram Vakil from Little & Co, and Ajay Behl, to become AZB & Partners. Now the firm has presence in three cities - Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore--- and has over 70 lawyers. Going ahead, Mody sees intellectual property, trade marks and brand names as a sunrise area, even as private equity advisory picks up. The tugs of the profession keep Mody, a mother of three daughters, busy 365 days. Says Mody, "I am a follower of the Bahai faith, and I try and give time to my religious activities when I do find spare time." Time is indeed a rare commodity for this lawyer, who says that, "It's been years since I read a good book or have had time to exercise." 11. KAVITA HURRY, "Life is about balance," states Kavita Hurry, head of ING Vysya Mutual Fund. She should know. Ensconced on a chaise lounge in her 13th floor apartment in Mumbai's plush downtown residential area, Cuffe Parade, she takes a brief break from a hectic schedule which involved an IPO closing over the weekend, even as she checks on the status of her kids' homework (aged 13 and 10). The balance she speaks of comes through all too clearly, as she reflects on her career that has involved a series of decisions that would help her, well, strike that balance. This MBA from NM Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, was once sure of a marketing job, that being her academic specialization ("I was really interested in HR though"). She had her first placement offers from a hotel and ad agency. "My parents were not too happy about these industries, and so the moment the offer from the Bank of Credit and Commerce (BCCI) happened, I jumped at it." After five years of going through various functions in trade finance, retail banking, foreign exchange, among other departments, Hurry landed an opportunity to try her hand at what she had really wanted -- human resource planning, when she got to head the department at the ill-fated BCCI. When the bank shut operations in India, Hurry had an offer from ANZ Grindlays who was looking for people for line functions, albeit with an HR background. The profile fit Hurry to the T, and the next three years were spent at ANZ Grindlays, largely in a manpower planning role. "I was keen to be in a line function by then, particularly in a business acquisition role and my first opportunity came when a General Manager at ANZ moved to ING and I was offered a job in credit operations. In course of time I figured my skill set was right for private banking." This was 1994. The aftermath of the Harshad Mehta scam was not the best time to start a portfolio management business but "we went ahead and told the regulator we would bring international norms to portfolio management and we actually pioneered private banking then". ING followed up private banking in India with offshore operations in Dubai, London and Singapore. "Offshore private banking was a great way of earning a dollar salary without leaving India," laughs Hurry. Speaking of mobility, has she ever left Mumbai? "I can't really leave Mumbai, my husband has a business here and the kids are in school." But hasn't that ever been an issue? "In several corporations that could be an issue but I picked something like private banking where customers want long term relationships and the business therefore requires you to be stationary". That's balance for you. In 2002, Hurry's ascension to the post of CEO of ING's asset management arm, coincided with the firm's merger with Vysya. As for the road ahead, what targets does she have for the Rs 1800 crores that she currently has under management? "I look at size very differently. Yes size matters but it's not everything. Profitability to me means more so I would consider the assets under management of considerable size at Rs 2,000 crore if we are making profits. What is the point of having Rs 4,000 under management if you are not making money?" she asks, hurling a barb at larger mutual funds. She is also determined to increase the participation of the retail customer base. "Mutual funds are wholesale driven today, that's not what they are meant to do. We are supposed to be mobilizing retail investors. I am clear that I want a large spread of small savings, I want to create a product range which is savings oriented". A feat that Hurry considers rather unique in her stint at the helm of ING Vysya Mutual Fund, is the fact that she hasn't spent a single rupee on advertising. Not a single rupee? "Yes that's right," she says, emphatically, adding "I believe that we need to talk to people. Actually make eye contact and talk when we sell our products. I have never been clear about how much bang for the buck advertising really delivers. I have clenched my teeth and decided to do it my way, which means a lot more PR than advertising." 12. GITA PIRAMAL, "I am not really sure I think of myself as a powerful businesswoman. Power seems to imply authority, maybe even coercion, even money power possibly and I would like to think there is none of these in my case." That opening line from Dr Gita Piramal, Managing Editor, Smart Manager, is enough to explain exactly why she resorted to writing to establish her sphere of influence in the world of business. Leveraging her unique position as wife of Dilip Piramal, Chairman of VIP Industries, she thoughtfully used the access she had to India's premier business families to author 6 books on business history and strategy (which includes the ones co-authored with legendary management guru, late Sumantra Ghoshal), and contribute to another half a dozen books, thereby coming to be known for her comprehensive writings on India's business families and Indian business strategy. It all started with a four-page supplement that she put together for the Economic Times in 1979 on 'Industrial Entrepreneurship Under The Raj (1854-1954)', which also happens to be the subject of her doctoral thesis. This was followed by occasional columns even as she pursued her PhD from Bombay University in business history. "Given my link with industry and academia," she says, "I think I bring a different perspective and I am also hugely interested in business strategy." In 1988, she became Bombay Correspondent for Financial Times, a post she was in till 1992. A couple of years later saw the publication of her bestseller, Business Maharajas. Another popular book has been Business Legends, was published in 1998. In 2002, she launched a quarterly journal of business strategy, Smart Manager. "We carry articles that take up to 3 years to put together, since they are based on empirical data and then we have articles based on personal experience, nothing which is based on just opinions." What would she consider a tangible measure of her influence? "My books are used as text books by the nearly 200,000 MBAs that India produces every year and I am in the process of helping the London Business School change its MBA curriculum." It's the smaller rewards, however, that come to mind vividly, like "the time when a waiter in Nashik said to me that he had read Business Maharajas and that he hoped I would write about him some day in the book, or a CEO who called in to say that he had launched his China operations after a visit to China following Smart Manager's article on the China opportunity." She plans to take the magazine bi-monthly now. Quiz her on the success of Smart Manager and she says, "The magazine broke even with the first issue. If we want to talk about management we had better show performance." The management principles for the project were put in place at the outset. "I wanted to prove that you can actually start a business on earnings from writings, and that is what I've done." Piramal expects to get a new editor within the next three years - the first step in a long term plan to ensure the growth of the magazine. "I have about 10 years of working life left in me and that is enough to institutionalise a product." Does she harbour a secret goal? "Yes, I do actually. I think I would like to write a potboiler. I have the plot, the characters, everything... now all I need is a year off, and a beach house borrowed from a friend to write that book." 13. KIRAN MAZUMDAR SHAW, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw has had a tumultuous year. A quarter century after she started a company in a garage with just Rs 1 lakh, Biocon in March 2004 went public. On the very first day of trading, it hit a billion dollars in market capitalization. Even after the initial pop, the share trades at Rs 520 (on August 30, 2004), valuing the company at Rs 5,200 crore. Kiran and husband John Shaw own 65 per cent of the company; Kiran herself, 39 per cent. And that makes her India's richest woman... a title she rather vehemently says, "I hate!" It is, doubtless, embarrassing to be know for wealth. "While Biocon is my baby, all this is paper wealth and even that I have always believed I am a mere custodian. More than that so many of the top management team have contributed to its growth," she says, hoping to deflect attention to the things that matter. Such as the value generated by Biocon. As India's pioneering biotech firm, in 2003-04 it made profit-after-tax of Rs 135 on a turnover of Rs 540 Crore. The company started life manufacturing enzymes. Extracting from papaya an enzyme used to tenderise meat, among other things, and from the bladders of tropical fish a collagen that helps clear beer. With a BSc (Hons) degree in Zoology and post-graduate degree in Malting and Brewing, Ballarat College, Melbourne University, she had a head for new commercial applications right from the start. "We don't do science for science's sake," says Shaw, "We are not a academic institution. We are a commercial organization. While we encourage our scientists to investigate, research and explore, we have to be commercially viable." She prides the firm in its early recognition of the potential of statins (put simply, cholesterol-reducing drugs)---in the early 1990s. "Remember even the traditional Indian pharma companies had not got onto this." Biocon is the also the first Indian company to get US Food & Drugs Administration (FDA) approval for fermentation-derived molecules for pharmaceutical uses. It has always been an IP led organization with nearly 200 patents in various stages (including 130 issued). Shaw's stated goal now: to make Biocon a major player in the bio-therapeutics segment. Already, the company is using its technology to manufacture recombinant human insulin. The product will pit Biocon against multinationals such as Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, which have already started lowering their prices, apparently in anticipation. To do all this, Shaw is devoting considerable attention to a spanking new 100-acre facility being built at a cost of Rs 750 crore at Bommasandar IV Stage in Bangalore. "This will be commissioned in stages. It will have some of the best research facilities as we have invested considerably in scientific equipment." The hope is to make Biocon a billion dollar revenue company, not just a billion dollar market cap one, though she won't say when. "We are listed now, you know," she laughs. 14. KALPANA MORPARIA, Early this year, she climbed one notch up in the ICICI Bank ladder to be the deputy managing director of ICICI Bank. For Kalpana Morparia, one of the top lieutenants of the bank, it's been an action-packed year, especially since February 2004. First was the capital raising by ICICI Bank, $700 million in a secondary capital raising exercise. It was a landmark of sorts. Says Morparia, who has been with the bank since 1975, "This was a big project... it was in the first week of February that the bank decided to raise capital and by 6 April, 2004, the amount was raised." Cut to 1999, when ICICI wanted to raise $500 million, and had to rely on an ADR issue, as well as preferential allotment to such institutions as LIC, GIC and UTI. Next, when one of the directors, S. Mukherjee, moved to head I-SEC, the special asset management group handling distressed assets came under Morparia's charge. And more recently, in August, when Nachiket Mor, executive director, went on a Yale Fellowship, his portfolio too was transferred to Morparia. In fact, Morparia's role in ICICI has grown dramatically. In 1998, her portfolio of responsibilities was expanded to include human resources development, planning and strategic support group and the special projects department. And in 2001, she became the executive director, heading the corporate centre, which is responsible for ensuring strategic consistency between the banks business units on a groupwide basis and for leading the group's strategic initiatives. Her responsibilities also include risk compliance, audit functions and other critical support services such as corporate communications, human resources management and corporate legal services. Having come thus far, for Morparia the challenge before the Bank and therefore as she sees it for her: "Continuing to be number one and with a wide margin. When you reach that position, the expectation level of everyone-shareholder, customers, regulators, employees-go up. And it's a challenge continuing to meet these expectations." 15. MADHABI PURI BUCH, When you enter her room on the 9th floor of the ICICI Bank Tower, there are brochures of various ICICI Bank's businesses. Head of brand management group responsible for the mother brand, ICICI Bank, is just one of the hats that Madhabi Puri Buch wears. Puri Buch, who took over as head of product and technology group for corporate banking of ICICI Bank in April 2002, is currently also the country head of operations and service delivery, head of transaction banking and technology (corporate banking). No, she is not a technology person but a business person---and from IIM-A---who also understands technology, and that makes all the difference. Ask her about her achievements in the last one year, and pat comes the reply: "We have leveraged technology to take world class products which were available to the crème de la crème of the population who banked with foreign banks to middle class of the country." She is a firm believer that if you have the right raw material, then specific domain knowledge is not required. Consider this: ICICI Bank has been offering service delivery commitments to customers and at low cost too. In the last two years, ICICI Bank has won several accolades for technology and delivery to customer. What's more, even as the banking industry is grappling with the issues of operational risk under the Basel II norms, ICICI Bank's technology group has built a robust business model on operational risk and gone ahead and filed a patent. Puri Buch has worn seven hats in seven years since 1997, beginning with mobilization of resources through ICICI Bonds, and on to heading corporate brand management, leading ICICI Capital Services as CEO to attain market leadership, launching ICICI's online share trading services as CEO of ICICI Web Trade, and growing the home loans business seven times as CEO of ICICI Home Finance Company. She is now dreaming of unleashing the magic of technology for the benefit of thousands of small ticket customer doing everyday transactions. Says Puri passionately, "If we can leverage technology further to reduce the cost of delivery to the level where we can serve a bhaijiwali at Dadar or a fishwali in Koliwada, who pays one per cent interest per day (compounded that adds to a whopping 3,678 per cent per annum), it would create a significant impact." Now that's the stuff of dramatic banking. 16. AMRITA PATEL, "Though legislation would have made it mandatory for the farmer to vaccinate livestock, we're not waiting for it," says Amrita Patel, Chairperson of National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), on the political-bureaucratic labyrinth that has delayed the passing of her pet Infectious Disease (Livestock) Control Act, which could have addressed the crucial issue of livestock health and productivity. Not one to be deterred, Patel has just teed off an ambitious Rs 35-crore NDDB-led programme in Kerala to check the rampant foot-and-mouth epidemic. "The farmer will pay for part of the vaccine, and we'll form a corpus to run it year-on-year." And she's not stopping at that. Realising that efficiency in production and collection alone means nothing without quality, Patel has also launched a 'Clean Milk Production Programme' right at the village level. Clearly, her sixty years has not dimmed the co-operative fire even a bit, for leading the 39-year old NDDB, the nodal agency for 96,000 dairy cooperatives, 170 milk producers' cooperative unions and 15 state cooperative milk-marketing federations, requires nerves of steel. And the lady seems to have tonnes of it. "The share of private business in milk and milk products is growing rapidly. Co-operatives have to professionalise fast, right from production to marketing." And it seems there's no holy cow she is not willing to sacrifice for it. "Well, we have to look at new, alternate co-operative structures." She reasons for consolidation amongst co-operatives to achieve both reduced overheads and bigger, viable markets. "Why can't we have multi-state level co-operatives, that combine two neighbouring states?" ask a feisty Patel, a spinster by choice and vet by education. Now this will put her against the highly territorial and government controlled cooperatives (in most states, except Gujarat, managing director is appointed by the government and not the federation's elected board) across the country. Why, any suggestion for even looking at any alternate cooperative structure, other than Anand's model of three-tier structure adopted by Operation Flood, will surely invite the wrath of her former mentor and father of country's milk cooperative revolution, Dr. Verghese Kurien. But then, Patel, firm in her belief that dairying is more livelihood for millions and not merely milk in India, is hardly known for taking the easy way out. 17. LALITA GUPTE, In August, Lalita Gupte launched a rep office of ICICI Bank in Bangladesh, the eighth outside India. A month earlier, it was a branch in Bahrain. She heads the international business group. So it was the Shanghai rep office and a branch in Singapore in September, rep office in UAE in October, subsidiary in UK in November and a subsidiary in Canada in December. Implementing the global part of the ICICI Bank's universal banking strategy has meant that Gupte travels round the globe for a minimum of 15 days a month, creating cross-cultural teams: 70 people from 17 different cultural backgrounds. It also involves getting to know NRIs, getting alliances to work, and evolving relationships with international banks. Says Gupte, who has been with ICICI Bank since 1971, "It's been a tremendous learning experience, from setting up international banking to getting the ICICI One Source up (was involved with seeking opportunities in Business process Outsourcing)." Gupte who joined ICICI in the project appraisal section after doing her management degree from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, went on to become the first woman on the ICICI Board as executive director in 1984, and was appointed joint managing director and COO in 1999. She has featured in the Fortune list of most powerful women in the world in 2002, and was also given the Woman of the Year award in 2002 by the International Woman's Association for her achievements in the corporate world. Gupte is now involved in building the international cadre of bankers and imbibing ICICI Bank culture and applying the global best practices at each of the international office of ICICI Bank dotting the globe. Going ahead, she will help scale up existing operations - having at least two branches in Canada this year, even as she awaits RBI approval for setting up branches in USA and Sri Lanka, and seeks a presence in South Africa and Russia. Says Gupte, "We have a long way to go." 18. SHIKHA SHARMA, Life insurance is an exciting field. And ICICI Prudential Life Insurance is the numero uno private insurer, having topped the premium income charts among private insurers three years in a row. But the company's CEO, Shikha Sharma, is aiming for a still bigger slice of the insurance industry. Having first focused on the retail insurance business and got the basics right, last year ICICI Pru targeted group insurance and tapped around 100 corporate clients to begin with. Today, ICICI Pru's performance looks impressive. Last year ICICI Pru became the largest in Asia in terms of premium income from among the Prudential UK's network of 23 life and mutual operations. It was number five the previous year. Says Sharma, "To be a pride of place for both the parents -- that was one of our aspirations when the company started. And we have already got there." Sharma's success formula has been you must have a vision where you want to go and keep doing things and perfect them as you go along. The numbers too are something to scream about -- issued over 500,000 individual policies with a sum assured of Rs 16,000 crore and carved a 40 per cent market share among private insurers in just three years. Financially, scale enabled the company to manage expense ratios well within IRDA specified levels. Sharma, an IIM (A) graduate has been some sort of a start-up wizard at ICICI group where she started her career 23 years ago. Starting with project finance in 1980, she was given a chance to be an entrepreneur and sprearhead group's forays into new areas since 1992 including securities business first and then personal finance services in 1998. 19. SHOBHANA BHARTIA, Shobhana Bhartia, Vice Chairperson, The Hindustan Times Limited (HT), it seems, never forecloses any options. "We may possibly look at the television business, not in the immediate future, but more on a five-year horizon." Well, this---after a failed attempt at television, Home TV, in the 1990s. And equally, never jumps into anything without adequate preparation. "The infrastructure is taking time. We'll launch next year," she adds, on the company's eponymous paper's much-awaited launch in Mumbai, the country's biggest newspaper advertising market and bastion of its fierce competitor for daily morning readership, The Times of India (TOI). The Birla lady joined the family business in 1986, and has been something of an iconoclast, transforming an old tardy organisation in a sector that never thought itself as an industry, into something markedly more innovative, dynamic and attention-getting. Today, she leads a vibrant ten-edition strong newspaper that has already proved all its sceptics wrong in Delhi, and could possibly give the country's most famous media monopoly (TOI in Mumbai) a serious case of jitters. Even bolder, perhaps, has been Bhartia's inking of the first FDI deal in Indian news print media; she sold a 20-per cent stake in Hindustan Times Media to Henderson Global Investors. This was done after the Government of India changed its FDI-in-print-media policy last year. Then, there have been signs of aggression on other fronts---as when Bhartia took on the findings of the National Readership Survey (NRS). "The reason we challenged the NRS findings was not because there was a minor difference, not because the Times of India came ahead of us, but because those figures were ridiculous," she says. And all this while keeping a close eye on consolidating HT, even springing quite a few never-before newspaper innovations in the country in the 2-Minute HT, Brunch weekend reading, HT Sports as a four-page pullout, and HT Premiere. "This kind of product (Brunch) has to catch on. Though we got a great reader response, the advertisers still haven't found a slot for a magazine that comes with a newspaper." Amongst all this, Bhartia manages to find time to catch up with her reading, especially in areas of interest such as international affairs and foreign policy. She is currently "struggling through" Bill Clinton's 900-page autobiographical tome, and has just finished reading a book by Robert Kagan. Tempted to ask how she manages work-life balance? "I enjoy my work terribly, so in a sense I don't feel I am working (at all). Or that this is work and this is pleasure, because my heart is very much in my work. It is very much the quality of time you spend with the family." 20. DR SWATI PIRAMAL, It has been an eventful year for Dr Swati Piramal, who, amidst achieving various corporate milestones, was appointed to the Board of the CSIR by India's Prime Minister. "I am really excited about my role at CSIR, since it's an opportunity to understand various streams of science and technology right from space research to agri research and science is what I love most," says she, clearly warming up to her role at the premier science organization. Her role in the public sphere has further expanded with an invitation to be on the economic advisory council of Rajasthan to look specifically at the state's health and biotech initiatives. On the corporate front, all her efforts towards setting up Nicholas' largest research centre, in suburban Mumbai, will come to fruition in November this year when this 400-scientist facility will be formally opened. The centre will focus on drug discovery research for cancer. "The target for our company is to get a drug discovered in India to go global. It's a long road and my journey on that road is vital both for me personally and for the company," she elaborates. As head of strategic alliances, she has helped seal a slew of deals for Nicholas last year - a total of 10 across licensing, technology, cross selling, among others. The company's pathology lab has done 4-5 acquisitions and alliances to add to that list. Another feather in Dr Piramal's cap has been her appointment to the board of SBI Life. "All the appointments outside of Nicholas help me understand a whole host of related issues and businesses which are relevant to our business finally." She is quick to add that her role as communications head for the company has been extremely rewarding too. "We have declared the past year as the 'Best Year Yet' for Nicholas. It's a program we defined last February and set goals for ourselves, like gaining leadership in certain areas of business, getting patents, striving for marketing excellence and so on. At the end of the year we took stock and measured our achievements. We have achieved almost 100 per cent of the targets, making it our best year yet." The feat was no doubt accomplished with ample support from Dr Piramal, who has played a sizeable role in the Piramal Group's decision to be in the pharmaceuticals business in the first place. It's a dream that has translated into a hugely successful business. 21. SUNITA NARAIN, She has been called the 'conscience' of Indian Industry, but Sunita Narain, chairperson of Delhi-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), does not feel that she is doing anything special. She is just exercising her rights as a citizen under the Indian constitution. "We use all the means at our disposal from legal resources to the media, to get our point across. I love democracy," says the lady who created a furore with a lab report alleging unsafe contaminants (the 'pesticide scam') in the popular fizzies advertised heavily and drunk by millions in the country. Narain has been accused of falsifying reports with a 'hidden agenda', stalling the development of free markets, of wanting to halt the progress of the country, and even promoting the European Union (EU) by the US Secretary of State. "I know many businesses consider me a pain in the backside, but frankly I am far more pragmatic than they would believe. I come from a business family, and I know that it is important for businesses to make money. All that CSE is trying is to do is trying to temper that progress, making sure that there are checks and balances in that growth," she says. Even though Narain is famous for the trouble she caused PepsiCo and The Coca-Cola Company, she says that CSE's biggest success so far has been the implementation of compressed natural gas (CNG) powered public transport in Delhi. "What is so frustrating in India is the steadfast refusal of officials to implement anything that has not been tried and tested. The CNG example is amazing proof that India can be a country of firsts. All of this is because of the narrow-mindedness of the bureaucracy. I have great faith in politicians... bureaucrats on the other hand..." she says. She talks of ill-planned water policies. "There is no reason why we do not do this, other than the fact that bureaucrats drag their feet. The water table is dropping, but people in Delhi still pay only 35 paise per kilolitre of water from the municipality, but are ready to pay Rs 10 for a litre of bottled water." On a rainy day, as the photo-shoot for this story progressed, her care-free but committed attitude shone through. "You know we carry our umbrellas upside down to highlight the potential of water harvesting," she says while standing on the ledge, three stories above the beautifully landscaped CSE office in Delhi's Tughlakabad Institutional Area. Pointing out the ironies of running CSE, Narain says that the same week she received a cheque for a few crore from the Ratan Tata Foundation, Tata Motors instituted a Rs 100 crore case against CSE. "This is because we accuse them of making polluting products," she laughs, "but, that shows the sign of a very mature corporate, and I wish other corporates could have been like that." In the frenzy of the cola crisis, she recalls with evident pain, one of Delhi's famous ad agency heads had taken to calling her names. But, instead of striking back, she says, "I don't want to get into this dirty game, I do what I do because I love doing it, and I do not want to do anything else." Of course, true to her image as an activist, Narain does find time to attack politicians---those with a socialist bent. "Old fashioned left politics is not socialism any more, and does far more damage than good. There is a desperate need to re-envision socialism beyond trade-union politics," Narain says. "Protectionist policies end up damaging the country. There is also this façade of a diesel price sham, all in the name of protecting the poor. Who run diesel engines, certainly not poor people," she says. 22. VEDIKA BHANDARKAR, If you perceive investment bankers as machinists fuelled by greed, hypocrisy and high risk --- you could blame Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker for that imagery perhaps --- you obviously haven't met Vedika Bhandarkar. A few minutes into a conversation with the Managing Director & Head of Investment Banking, J.P. Morgan India, are enough to wipe out those vivid images of fat-cat, short-sighted traders dancing in your head. Bhandarkar has been in financial services for 14 years now, but you don't see too much of her in the media, pontificating about corporate prospects and fiscal well being. Along with her penchant for the low profile, her candour too is refreshing. For instance, she'll tell you that when she went on maternity leave to deliver her second baby, it was pretty much a tumultuous period for the firm, which was being restructured to become J.P. Morgan Chase. "My fear was: Would I have my job when I returned? Fortunately my firm surprised me positively." It's not for nothing that J.P. Morgan surprised Bhandarkar positively. In the past six years, Bhandarkar has earned plenty of laurels for herself and the firm, the most recent and significant one being the $1.1-billion TCS public offering, where J.P. Morgan was the joint bookrunner. You won't find her taking individual credit for such deals, and that's largely because the "star" culture is pretty alien to J.P. Morgan. Yet, when it comes to executing and closing out deals, it's difficult to leave out Bhandarkar. Like, for instance, in ONGC's acquisition of MRPL from the AV. Birla group. Right from the outset --- when ONGC Chairman Subir Raha called up Bhandarkar and evinced his interest --- the odds were tipped against the deal. MRPL's balance sheet was a mess, loaded with $1.5 billion of high-interest debt. Bhandarkar and her team pulled off a minor miracle by convincing the 15 lenders to the project to take an average 25 per cent haircut. Today, MRPL has a comfortable capital structure, a healthy bottom line and a share price that's climbed over five-fold (in the Rs 40 range) since the restructuring. Does that make Bhandarkar a star in Indian investment banking circles? She'll probably recoil with horror at such a suggestion. "It's a lot of grunt work. It's the visible results that add a touch of glamour ---you either raise equity/debt or you don't; an M&A either works or it doesn't." In Bhandarkar's case, it invariably does. 23 DIPTI NEELAKANTAN, In the early eighties, when Dipti Neelakantan had just completed her chartered accountancy, she strode out confidently to join the motley world of company secretaries. She was in for a rude shock. Both the companies (both listed) that interviewed her for a posting in the company secretary department rejected her. The reason is predictable: Neelakantan was a woman, she wouldn't be able to do late nights, live out of her suitcase, deal with government departments, blah blah. "All things being equal, at both companies they preferred to select a male," grins Neelakantan, who subsequently has had the, well, pleasure of working with both those companies. For Neelakantan there's little to regret. She applied for another job, with a firm called J.M. Financial & Investment Consultants, an investment bank, which wasn't considered the greatest of career opportunities two decades ago. One Nimesh Kampani, who was running the firm along with his uncle, uncle's son and one professional director, was looking to build a team. Neelakantan was one of the first members on board. Twenty three years on, Neelakantan hasn't looked back. Currently Chief Operating Officer, she's grown along with JM (which Kampani eventually bought out from his uncle in 1989, and a decade ago he formed a joint venture with Morgan Stanley). Neelakantan had plenty to learn, and so did Indian capital markets. Investment banking as we know it barely existed. "Not too many believed that there was money to be made without being speculative," says Neelakantan. Neelakantan was instrumental in the launch of India's first retail non-convertible debenture, which basically ensured that an investor's Rs 100 would appreciate to Rs 270 in seven years. "It was hot," recollects Neelakantan, "and signalled the awareness and acceptance of fixed income paper. Towards the mid-eighties, Neelakantan along with her husband (also from JM) moved to Delhi to set up JM's Delhi. The arrival of the Delhi operations was heralded a few years later when Neelakantan handled four IPOs of Rs 100 crore-plus --- a major event in those days (when mutual funds and FIIs didn't exist, and retail selling was the priority). By 1996, she was back in Mumbai in tragic circumstances, after her husband passed away. Today, as COO Neelakantan, whose experience spans across capital markets to corporate advisory, is No 2 at a super-specialised investment bank. Ask her if she's reached the peak of a career, and she'll reply: "When I got back from Delhi, most people wondered if I could handle the trauma and move ahead from here. But there have always been opportunities and there will always be more opportunities going forward." Equal opportunities, if one need add. 24. V.M. CHHABRIA, She's grown revenues of flagship Shaw Wallace by 20 per cent in 2003-2004. Pre-tax profits are 2.5 times higher than the previous year's. And Royal Challenge whisky has become a 1 million case brand. But easily the best thing Vidya Chhabria, Chairperson of the Dubai-based diversified Jumbo group, could have done since taking over at the helm two years ago is to "mutually resolve all disputes" with Indian liquor baron and head-on rival Vijay Mallya after decades of seemingly never-ending combat. "A lot of time and effort was being spent in litigation by both parties. (The patch-up) augurs well for Shaw Wallace as well as the liquor industry." There's a lot more that keeps her busy in the endeavour to, in her words, "add definite value to (the late) Mr. (Manu) Chhabria's legacy." For instance, compensation structures have been aligned to boost productivity and motivation, aimed no doubt at helping Shaw Wallace meet its vision of doubling revenues and tripling profits in three years. And although tyre company Dunlop continues to be in the dog house, other group companies like Falcon Tyres and Hindustan Dorr Oliver are making headway in competitive scenarios. Helping her grow the Chhabria legacy are daughters Komal and Kiran, who, as the Chairperson points out, "have carved a niche for themselves...in the company of seasoned professionals." Along with Komal and Kiran, Chhabria treats every day as a "new learning experience. As a custodian of shareholders' interest, I feel morally obliged to maximize value." 25. NAINA LAL KIDWAI, As Naina Lal Kidwai sees it, power isn't gender-specific, and it's all about impact, control and position. It's the individuals in that seat of power who make the difference, depending on how they exercise their power: for instance, they could be megalomaniacs, preferring to project the self. Or they could be those who prefer to leave a mark on the business they run, or on the environment around them. As Deputy CEO, HSBC, Kidwai clearly doesn't see herself in the self-projection category. "From my position," says Kidwai, "I would like to make an impact on (HSBC's) performance, on the regulatory regime and within the social framework." Kidwai has been able to align herself pretty much with HSBC's focus on education and environment, be it with initiatives like micro-lending to schools, adopting villages and promoting water harvesting there, or doing her bit for women's education and empowerment. But if you think that Kidwai is getting soft, you couldn't be wrong. A founder member of the Association of Merchant Bankers (formed way back in 1987-88 along with other capital market stalwarts like Nimesh Kampani and Hemendra Kothari), Kidwai is still very much the hard-nosed, tough-talking deal maker. Her role at HSBC clearly is to sharpen the investment banking edge and "bring in that killer instinct." She's made her presence felt by helping some of India's biggest corporations --- Tatas, Reliance, A.V. Birla and Wockhardt --- to fund offshore acquisitions, using the HSBC balance sheet. At the same time, she appreciates the safety that comes along with a prudent institution like HSBC. "We never piss away our money."
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