PREETHA REDDY- Hospitality Manager

PREETHA REDDY,47, Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals group
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.

Ravina Raj Kohli, earlier President of the STAR NEWS, and currently (2006) the Chief Executive officer of Channel Nine, is one of the prominent media personality of India.
She was appointed as the President of Star news Channel, after its break from NDTV. Thereafter, Australian media tycoon, Kerry Pecker chose her to head Channel Nine in India. As Ravina once siad in interview"We are constantly getting feedback on what viewers would like to watch. We are in the process of commissioning a study to get further insights into viewer preferences" Ravina is star performer of Indian Television news.

Padmasree Warrior- Legend in IT

A 47 year old Indian-American lady has just won one of the world’s most highly prized jobs. Now being called the geek queen, Padmasree Warrior, has been appointed as Cisco’s Chief Technology Officer. She fills a post left vacant since July when Cisco promoted former CTO, Charles Giancarlo to the post of chief development officer. She was the former CTO of Motorola and In 2001 she was one of six women nationwide selected to receive the "Women Elevating Science and Technology" award from Working Woman Magazine.She is one of the highest ranking female Indian executives in the US technology industry.

Padmasree Warrior is married to Mohandas Warrior, CEO of a Madison, Wisconsin based company called Alfalight. They have a 14 year old son named Karna Warrior.

Shobhana Bhartia -The Media Power

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."

Vedika Bhandarkar MD & Head (Investment Banking)/JP Morgan India

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.

Vinita Bali- Britania Industries

Vinita Bali was appointed Managing Director on 31st May 2006. Vinita joined as Chief Executive Officer of the Company in January 2005. She received her Bachelor's Degree in Economics from LSR at the University of Delhi and her MBA at the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies at Bombay University. She pursued postgraduate studies in Business and Economics at Michigan State University on a scholarship from The Rotary Foundation, and was selected to work as a Graduate Intern at the United Nations headquarters in New York. She started her career with Voltas Ltd.-a Tata Group company focusing on consumer products, where she launched Rasna soft-drink concentrate. In 1980, Vinita joined Cadbury India, where she had a successful career in roles of increasing responsibility, not just in India, but also in the UK, Nigeria and South Africa. Vinita also served on the Boards of Cadbury Nigeria and Cadbury South Africa. The Coca-Cola Company chose her as its worldwide Marketing Director in 1994 where she was responsible for the worldwide strategy for Coke, and was one of the key players in doubling its historical growth rate. In 1997 she took over as Vice President of Marketing for Latin America, and in 1999 relocated to Chile as President of the Andean Division with sales in excess of USD 1 Billion. In 2001, she was made a corporate officer of The Coca-Cola Company and appointed Vice President of Corporate Strategy reporting to the Chairman. After an eventful nine-year association with Coke, Vinita joined her mentor at Coke, Sergio Zyman at the Zyman Group in July 2003 as a Managing Principal and Head of the Business Strategy practice in the company's Atlanta office. As a member of the company's Board of Managers, Vinita shared responsibility for developing and managing Zyman Group's consulting business.

Ashu Suyash- Fund Manager Fidelity Fund Management

Fidelity, the world’s largest fund manager, appointed Ashu Suyash as head of its mutual funds business in India earlier this year. Suyash’s appointment ended several months of speculation on who would man – er, woman – this prime slot. Fidelity Fund Management Pvt Ltd is an arm of Fidelity International Ltd, which, along with Fidelity Management & Research Company, Boston, US, has $1.2 trillion assets under management.
A CA by qualification, Suyash, 37, brings with her over 15 years of financial services industry experience, including a stint with Citicorp Brokerage India Ltd as CEO (1996-1998) and as head of investor sales (1998-2000). Most recently, she was head of strategy and business development for Citigroup in India. She also did a year’s stint with Timesofmoney .com. Fidelity is is likely to hit the market with its first product in October 2004. “India is a strategic market for Fidelity and we have a long-term app-roach to the business,” says Suyash.

Komal Wazir------- Shaw Wallace

Bhavika Godhwani, the little-known eldest daughter of Vidya Manohar Chhabria, has demanded a four-way split in the $2 billion Jumbo Group.
The business, she has demanded, should be divided equally between Chhabria and her three daughters - Bhavika, Komal Chhabria Wazir and Kiran Chhabria.
Bhavika has always kept a low profile. When her father, Manu Chhabria, was alive, he would often say that Bhavika was the least likely of his three daughters to join the family business. Then why this sudden flare-up in the family?
Sources close to Godhwani say that her angst is directed at 29-year-old Komal who has emerged as the public face of the Jumbo Group after her father's death in April this year.
Wazir is not new to the Indian corporate scene; she shot into prominence some years ago when she started attending Shaw Wallace board meetings in her father's place, who was then unable to visit India because he was facing FERA charges.
Wazir's pre-eminence among the sisters can be gauged from the fact that she is on the board of all the family's Indian ventures whereas Bhavika Godhwani is on the board of only one of them - Hindustan Dorr-Oliver.
Kiran Chhabria, the youngest, has just joined the family business in Dubai. A talented writer, she is helping out with group communications out of Dubai.
It is also worth noting that Manoj Godhwani, Bhavika's husband, was on the Dunlop India board but stepped down subsequently.
In fact, the Chhabria family has decided to keep its sons-in-law out of the family business. Thus, Komal's husband, Rajiv Wazir, runs his own advertising agency.
A commerce graduate from Mumbai's Sydenham College, Komal Wazir has been in the family business for six years now after starting out as a management trainee. Those who have worked with her say she knows her job.
In some ways she is like her father. For instance, she is a movie buff. But while her father enjoyed Bollywood flicks at home, she likes to watch good cinema at theatres.
There are differences too - Manu Chhabria loved to go out with friends, while Wazir is a home-bird and an avid reader.
Since the Chhabria family is trying to professionalise the group, Wazir says that her role is now restricted to strategising, with professionals looking after the day-to-day work of the group companies.
True to her word, when she was recently asked by Business Standard if a North-based group had approached her to sell its brewery, she said she would have to check with Shaw Wallace executives.
Shortly before his death in April this year, Manu Chhabria set up the Jumbo Group Corporate Management Board to convert the group into a professionally-managed business entity.
The group recently appointed H N Nanani, formerly with ModiCorp joint venture Xerox India, as CEO in charge of its India operations. More independent directors are reportedly soon to be inducted on its board.
Though Wazir insists that she is totally hands-off, the pace of things has picked up considerably at SWC, the group's Indian flagship, in the post-Manu Chhabria era. It has raided its arch rival, Vijay Mallya-promoted UB, for top talent.
A K M A Shamsuddin resigned as a chief operating officer of the UB Spirits Division (which includes Herbertsons and McDowell's) to join SWC as president (liquor division).
Now, another UB Spirits Division COO, S K Bishwal, has put in his papers and is likely to join SWC soon. Thus, two out of the four COOs of UB Spirits Division might soon be in the SWC camp.
Ironically, the flare-up between the siblings has happened at a time when Wazir and her mother are trying to end the earlier feud in the family between Manu Chhabria and his brother Kishore.
Before his death, Manu Chhabria had started a process of rapprochement with his brother, settling several issues out of court.
Wazir says she is committed to resolving the remaining issues with her uncle out of court too. At the moment, though, her hands are full with an issue with her elder sister.

Pooja Jain ---The Writing Gem

Pooja Jain – Executive Director, Luxor Writing InstrumentsA degree in International Business from the London School of Economics, as well as a stint with Gillette (UK & USA), helped Ms. Pooja Jain gain an insight into effective corporate branding and her experience paid rich dividends when she launched the B2B division of Luxor Writing Instruments in 1998. She later headed the marketing operations of the company and subsequently propelled it to the top of the corporate sales ladder. From a modest Rs 2 crore, the B2B business today is worth a whopping Rs 20 crore and has the top 5000 companies among its clientele.As the Head of Business Operations, Ms.Pooja Jain is actively involved in positioning premium brands like Waterman and Parker in an Indian context. In a bid to correlate the brand value with the user’s profile, Luxor decided to introduce a legendary icon like Amitabh Bachchan as its brand ambassador. Ms. Pooja’s idea became an instant hit – leading to further brand enhancement and skyrocketing sales figures. When the Group diversified, Ms.Pooja shared her experience and expertise with other units and now plays an active role in business lines dealing with hospitality, technology and finance. Young and enthusiastic, Ms.Pooja Jain has a zeal for community services and takes active interest in promoting education among underprivileged children. She is also a great advocate of technical education and has taken effective measures to help spread computer literacy.

Tulip Joshi---- Fresh Face of Bollywood

Tulip Joshi was born on september 11, 1979. She is an Indian model who carries her carreer in the Bollywood industry. Her father is a Gujrathi while her mother is Lebanese-Armenian. Tulip Joshi has two sisters, Selphi and Monalisa. Rajat Bedi, a Bollywood actor married her sister Monalisa. She was brought up in Bombay from where she did her schooling at Jamnabai Narsee school and was graduated in Mithibai College taking up Food science and chemistry.
Tulip is a good sports person and she has competed National Level atheletics too. Tulip got to enter film industry by chance when she attended her friend’s wedding. Fortunately, Aditya chopra, the groom and the son of Yash Chopra, a well known director, noticed her and called her for the auditions. Later, she was introduced by them to bollywood in the film, “Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai”. She was trained to speak hindi at Feroze Khan’s studio, as she was not too good in hindi diction and acting. Tulip Joshi, changed her name to Sanjana, to sound much more like the name of Indian girl, on the advises of the director. The film did well and was a succes too. Hence. She planned to take up acting as her career.
Tulip took up the Femina Miss India Contest in 2000 but, she couldn’t make up to enter the list of winners list. Many advertising agencies approaced her for their ad films after noting her at the contest. She signed them and did many ad films for top brands like Ponds, Pepsi, BPL, etc. Tulip’s parests did not want her to act in films and advertisements but then she continued her carreer, as it gave her a place in the industry. Tulip appeared in a video which was made as a tribute to the famous, “Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan”. For the next two years, she didn’t sign any new assignments as she was suffering from back problems and she had to treat it with shift of spine attached with a disc. When she recovered, she got an offer to act in “Matrubhoomi” and she was greately appreciated for her performance in the film. This film, was a break for her. Then, she signed a telegu film, “Villian” following which she signed for “Dil Maange More” starred with Shahid Kapoor, Ayesha Takia and Soha Ali Khan. This film did not do well at box office.

Chanda Kochhar - achiever

"EVEN though I have worked for one institution for the nineteen years of my career, I feel that I worked for several companies," says Chanda Kochhar, executive director of the ICICI Bank in Mumbai. After graduating from Mumbai’s Bajaj Institute of Management in business management and completing her cost accountancy course, she joined ICICI as a management trainee in 1984."But in the 19 years since then, the ICICI has evolved so much and so many new activities and endeavours have been initiated, that I feel I have worked for several companies," says Chanda.

Firstly, every two years, she was promoted regularly so that her job profile changed, often dramatically. New things happened at ICICI almost every day and Chanda was head of commercial banking, then she was in charge of major client servicing followed by infrastructure investments. And finally, in retail banking. For 14 years, Chanda was a corporate banker. For the last three years she has been a retail banker. "I work in tandem with ICICI Mutual Fund and ICICI Insurance, though they are separate companies. My present job includes building a strong network of branches of the ICICI bank, creating as many ATMs as possible, building a call-centre network, credit cards and other functions of a retail banking system. Today, within a short span, ICICI has become the largest retail finance bank, thanks to the effort of our dedicated teams," says Chanda.

Though Chanda’s phenomenal success in a financial institution is unique, she says that women have made unprecedented forays in the world of finance and banking. To name just a few luminaries, she mentions the names of Tarjani Vakil who is the former chairperson and managing director of the Exim Bank; Lalita Gupte, joint managing director of ICICI; Naina Lal Kidwai of Morgan Stanley; Sonal Dave of HSBC Securities; Shikha Sharma who heads ICICI’s insurance activities and Renuka Ramnath who heads ICICI’s venture finance division. There are many women at the executive director or general manager level in the Reserve Bank of India and State Bank of India.

"This is not surprising," says Chanda, "I believe that women have a great capability to flourish in any job they choose. Earlier, India had a manufacturing economy. The finance and banking sector was comparatively small. The mindset of society was that women could not work on the shop floor in manufacturing industries. But things have changed now. The old mindset is not relevant to finance. Secondly, banking needs a correct and deep understanding of money and the minds of people. It is a multi-faceted business. One has to be in the shoes of a customer to look at money and investment or saving from his/her point of view. Because women themselves are passionate and multi-faceted by nature, they fit this business very well. That is why so many women have done exceedingly well in this sector.

"On the other side of coin," Chanda continues, "Urban or rural educated women are participating in financial-decision making within the family. They are aware partners in a marriage and together with their husbands they decide on the ratio between safe instruments and risk factor investments. They decide the priorities of their families — a house, a car, holidays, children’s education and savings for later years — and apportion money accordingly, in consultation with their husbands. In educated families, men no longer take financial decisions by themselves. Moreover, a huge number of women are in business or jobs themselves. India has the largest number of women entrepreneurs and they are doing exceedingly well. At our bank, we advise them about seeking funding or equity to make their projects cost efficient and quick profit making. We help them to check out the best methods of getting funding for their ventures. The reasons why Indian women can venture into entrepreneurship on such a large scale are:

First, whatever may be the retro features of our society, Indians generally hold courageous women in esteem. When a woman shows fortitude and asserts her point of view, they quite often listen. Secondly, the joint family culture offers a choice for modern women. They can depend upon the infrastructure offered by parents, in-laws or other relatives and friends if they care to build and nurture these relationships. The comfort of a joint family is not available to women anywhere else in the world. Thirdly, there is household help available in Indian cities until now."

Chanda believes that women can deal with any issue of life on the basis of equality and need no special privileges. They can perform whatever task given to them with efficiency and responsibility. "This has been proved in projects undertaken by our rural branches. ICICI has almost 100 rural branches in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. In Tamil Nadu, we have helped to set up self-help groups in villages. These 8500 groups, comprising of 20 people each, make up almost 1.5 lakh people, of whom 95 per cent are women. These women are pro-active to change and progress. We encourage them to save, to learn how to deal with money, to pool money to gives loans to each other and impress upon them the absolute need to repay all loans on time. We hope to replicate this project in other states."

Chanda is married to a businessman and has a 14-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son. "I have not faced major problems in my career because my husband is understanding and co-operative. My in-laws live in the neighbouring building and help whenever I need them. My parents come and take charge of the children when I am away for long periods. We spend a good deal of time with the children and each other. Yes, I have heard the argument that children of women who work as hard as I do can become dysfunctional. Paediatricians and social scientists have expressed this opinion. Children of non-working mothers are dysfunctional too. The answer is a rich and value-based family life, which has to be built by all concerned. Women must learn the value of building relationships within the family and among friends so that children too can have several people to look up to rather than just their parents. "I was fond of dramatics and elocution in my college days. I sometimes play badminton on weekends. But I have no hesitation in saying that I absolutely love my work. It is my passion as well as my relaxation."

Vikram Pandit- Proud of India

Vikram Pandit is the current CEO of Citigroup.
Pandit worked for Morgan Stanley for two decades and was the President and Chief Operating Officer of the Institutional Securities and Investment Banking Group at Morgan Stanley where he was responsible for the overall management of the group and focused on the trading, sales and infrastructure aspects of the business (2000-2005). Before that, he served as the managing director and head of the Worldwide Institutional Equities Division (1994-2000), and as the managing director and head of the US Equity Syndicate (1990-1994) for Morgan Stanley. Pandit left Morgan Stanley with a few colleagues to start a hedge fund Old Lane Partners, which Citigroup bought in 2007 for $800 million.
Pandit serves on the boards of Columbia University, Columbia Business School, the Indian School of Business and The Trinity School. He is a former board member of NASDAQ (2000-2003), the New York City Investment Fund, and the American India Foundation.
On December 11, 2007, Pandit was named the new CEO of Citigroup, replacing interim-CEO Sir Winfried Bischoff. Pandit is the effective successor to Chuck Prince who resigned in November 2007 due to unexpectedly poor 3rd quarter performance, mainly due to CDO and MBS related losses.

[edit] Early Life and Education
Vikram Pandit was born in Nagpur, Maharashtra, India to a moderately affluent Marathi Deshastha Brahmin family. At the age of 16, he moved to the United States to attend college at Columbia University. He received B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering in 1976 and 1977 respectively, and later earned a Ph.D. in Finance in 1986.[2]
50-year-old Pandit is the second Indian to become CEO of a major American financial institution (after Ramani Ayer, CEO of Hartford Financial Services Group). He is a trustee at Columbia University. He was a junior finance professor at Indiana University Bloomington in the mid-1980s before joining Morgan Stanley. As head of Morgan Stanley's institutional-securities division from 1994 to 2000, he pushed the company into more electronic trading and helped build the firm's prime brokerage services that cater to hedge funds. He led the institutional-securities business from 2000 until March 2005.
Pandit and his wife Swati reside at Central Park West and 81st Street. The apartment was purchased from the late actor Tony Randall for $17.85 million in September 2007. The 10-room apartment has 20 windows facing Central Park.

VENU GOPAL DHOOT

Venugopal Dhoot (Born 1944 in Mumbai, India) is an Indian business tycoon. He is an alumni of prestigious Sydenham College, Mumbai. He was born into a wealthy farming family. He is married, and has two children. His personal fortune is estimated as the equivalent of 1.6 Billion United States dollars, making him a billionaire.
His father, the late Nandlal Madhavlal Dhoot, set his sons up in his business, Videocon Electronics. The company's major breakthrough came when it received one of India's first licenses to make color televisions. As of 2006, Venugopal is its chairman, and it now makes a wide range of electric and electronic items. His company recently bought a color picture tube unit from the French company Thompson SA, and a refrigerator business from Swedish company Electrolux. According to Forbes, he is the eighteenth richest man in India. His brother, Rajkumar, is a member of the Indian Parliament.

Anjali Bansal- True Leader

Anjali Bansal
Anjali Bansal manages Spencer Stuart's Mumbai office, which serves multinational and Indian companies on critical leadership and board issues. Based in India, she is a core member of the firm's Financial Services and Technology, Communications & Media practices.
Working in various geographies across the U.S., U.K., India and Southeast Asia, Anjali focuses on world-class leadership development in India. Prior to joining Spencer Stuart, Anjali was a consultant with another global executive search firm. Based in that firm's Mumbai office, she focused on search assignments for clients in the financial services, industrial and technology sectors, and worked with private equity and venture capital firms. She also was a founding member of the firm's nonprofit practice in India.
Before entering the executive search field, Anjali was with McKinsey & Company. Based in New York and Mumbai, she focused on strategy consulting assignments with financial services firms in banking, capital markets, insurance and private equity, and has worked in New York, London and Mumbai. She also led engagements with leading Indian financial services and technology firms on business-building and organizational strategy. She started her career as an engineer with the Indian Space Research Organization in India, and later joined the South Asia program office of Women's World Banking in New York.
Anjali has a strong interest in development, particularly as it relates to poverty and livelihood issues. She serves on the India Board of Women's World Banking, a leading international microfinance network, and consults with the Grameen Foundation USA and Sewa Bank in India. In addition, Anjali is a charter member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and is a mentor to the IIT Mumbai-TiE Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) incubator.
Anjali received a master's degree, with distinction, in international affairs majoring in international finance and business from Columbia University and a bachelor's degree in computer engineering from Gujarat University in India.

Mukesh D. Ambani.......Business man of world.

Shri Mukesh D. Ambani, age 50, is a Chemical Engineer from the University of Bombay and pursued MBA from Stanford University, USA. He is the son of Shri Dhirubhai H. Ambani, Founder Chairman of the Company.
Shri Ambani joined Reliance in 1981 and initiated Reliance's backward integration from textiles into polyester fibres and further into petrochemicals, petroleum refining and oil and gas exploration and production. In this process, he directed the creation of several new world- class manufacturing facilities involving diverse technologies that have raised Reliance's petrochemicals manufacturing capacities from less than a million tonnes to thirteen million tonnes per year.
Shri Ambani directed and led the creation of the world's largest grassroots petroleum refinery at Jamnagar, India, with a current capacity of 660,000 barrels per day (33 million tonnes per year) integrated with petrochemicals, power generation, port and related infrastructure, at an investment of Rs. 25,000 crore (nearly US$ 6 billion).
Shri Ambani set up the largest and most complex information and communications technology initiative in the world in the form of Reliance Infocomm Limited (now Reliance Communications Limited). Covering more than 1,100 towns and cities across India, Reliance Infocomm offers the full range of voice, data, video and value added services, on the strength of 80,000 kilometres of optic fibre-based terabit infrastructure, at the lowest entry cost and service cost anywhere in the world.
Shri Ambani is also steering Reliance's initiatives in a world scale, offshore, deep water oil and gas exploration and production program and implementation of a pan- India organized retail network spanning multiple formats and supply chain infrastructure.
Shri Ambani's achievements include:
Bestowed the US-India Business Council (USIBC) 'Global Vision' 2007 Award for Leadership in 2007
Invited to be a member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). He is the only Indian CEO to be a Council Member of WBCSD.
Conferred 'ET Business Leader of the Year' Award by The Economic Times (India) in the year 2006.
Received the first NDTV-Profit 'Global Indian Leader Award' from Hon'ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Manmohan Singh in New Delhi in the year 2006.
Had the distinction and honour of being the co- chair at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2006 in Davos, Switzerland.
Ranked 42nd among the 'World's Most Respected Business Leaders' and second among the four Indian CEOs featured in a survey conducted by Pricewaterhouse Coopers and published in Financial Times, London, November, 2004.
Conferred the World Communication Award for the 'Most Influential Person in Telecommunications in 2004' by Total Telecom, October, 2004.
Conferred the 'Asia Society Leadership Award' by the Asia Society, Washington D.C., USA, May, 2004.
Shri Ambani is the Chairman of Reliance Petroleum Limited and Reliance Retail Limited and a Director of Reliance Europe Limited and Pratham India Education Initiative. He is the Chairman of the Finance Committee, a member of the Shareholders'/ Investors' Grievance Committee and the Employees Stock Compensation Committee of the Company.
Shri Ambani is a member of the Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry, Government of India; Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Society, India; Board of Governors of the National Council of Applied Economic Research, New Delhi and the Advisory Council of the Indian Banks' Association. He is a member of the Indo-US CEOs Forum, the International Advisory Board of Citigroup, and McKinsey Advisory Council.
He is the Chairman, Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and a member of the IIT Bombay Advisory Council of the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. He is also a member of the Advisory Council for the Graduate School of Business of the Stanford University.

Naina Lal Kidwai-Banking power woman

Naina Lal Kidwai (born 1957) was the first Indian woman to graduate from the Harvard Business School. As of 2006, she is the Chief Executive Officer of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation India branches.
Fortune magazine listed Kidwai among the World's Top 50 Corporate Women from 2000 to 2003. According to the Economic Times, she is the first woman to head the operations of a foreign bank in India.
Naina Lal Kidwai is currently the Group General Manager and Country Head of HSBC India. She has been awarded with Padma Shri, one of the highest civilian honours bestowed by the Government of India. The announcement was made by Rashtrapati Bhawan on 26 Jan 2007.
Naina has got the honour for her exemplary work in the promotion of Trade and Industry.
Contrary to what most people believe, Naina Lal is not a chartered accountant. She only trained for her chartered accountancy with Price Waterhouse but then dropped out to pursue an MBA at Harvard instead. Her mother is the industrialist Lalit Mohan Thapar's sister and her cousin, Gautam Thapar currently manages Ballarpur Industries Ltd, one of the largest manufacturers of paper in the country.
She began her career in banking with ANZ Grindlays Bank (acquired by Standard Chartered bank in 2000)and then moved on to head the Indian operations of Morgan Stanley. She left Morgan Stanley in 2002 to join HSBC India as head of its investment banking business. In May 2005, she was named country head of the HSBC Group in India.
Naina is married to Rashid Kidwai who runs the NGO, Digital Partners.

ICONS OF INDIA.........

India..... great country have wide ranges in every areas, lot of talent.....India is not just a potential market but it's also a place with an exceptional talent pool. India is geographically spread out as well.With the baby-boomer population in the US reaching retirement and the average age increasing in most of the western countries, global corporates are looking at India to get the right talent.
India is topmost on the list of preferred destinations for countries facing an internal talent crunch situation," global management consultancy firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG) partner and director James V Abraham said.