The Bold And The Influential

IS THERE a dearth of women leaders in this man’s world? Not really, if you look at the women leaders’ lists floating around. This list, full of usual suspects, doesn’t really serve the cause as it rarely evolves. And hence it lacks credibility.

We, on the other hand, are known for trend-spotting. The personalities featured by BW Businessworld are known to make it big — this has been the general trend.

When we decided to showcase 38 Most Influential Women leaders who impact businesses and economy (to coincide with BW Businessworld’s 38th anniversary), we thought the list must have a stamp of credibility and authority.

Hence, we did a Corporate India Survey spanning eight centres across India, targeting 400 industry captains.

Some of the names are obvious — like Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Sushma Swaraj, Debjani Ghosh and Nirmala Sitharaman. Some of them, however, may not be that familiar but you will hear more about them in the days to come. The final Most Influential Women leaders’ list, then, is a ready reckoner for the industry, media, academia and readers alike.

Methodology of the Corporate India Study

This Corporate India survey reached out to 400 industry leaders, across eight cities.

Every respondent was given a list of 20 names to rate (from a pool of 50). They were given an option to not rate certain names if they chose not to. Rating was done on a scale of 1-10 (Strongly Disagree — Strongly Agree) on three parameters: (80 per cent weight) — SCOPE OF IMPACT ON BUSINESS / POLICY (20 per cent weight) — ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT (20 per cent weight) — MEDIA MOMENTUM Every nominee received at least 100 ratings.

Research Agency: The data compilation and analysis was done by Decode Research and Analytics—led by Havish Madhvapaty (Co-founder) and Raunak Singh (analyst). — Team BW

THIS FIESTY MINISTER CHAMPIONS TRADE-LED DIPLOMACY