India’s top women bankers, State Bank of India’s (SBI) chief Arundhati Bhattacharya, ICICI head Chanda Kochhar and Axis Bank chief executive Shikha Sharma, are among the ‘50 most powerful women’ based outside the US, according to a list by Fortune, which is topped by Banco Santander’s boss Ana Botín.
• Bhattacharya, 60, is ranked second on the list, while Kochhar comes at the fifth spot and Sharma on the 19th position in the Fortune’s ’50 most powerful women international’ list, which has ranked the women based outside the US.
• Botín, group executive chairman of Banco Santander, Eurozone’s largest bank by market value, repeats as No. 1, in a time of economic and political volatility for all. The 2016 list spans 19 countries.
• “Bhattacharya’s profile has risen during her three-year tenure atop India’s largest bank,” Fortune said. SBI Chairman Bhattacharya, who was widely speculated to succeed Raghuram Rajan as the governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has continued her “high-profile battle with the bank’s bad loans, while courting overseas partners to invest in the stressed assets.
• In May, she also orchestrated SBI’s merger with six other groups, a plan that, once complete, will result in one of largest lenders in Asia.
• ICICI Bank Managing Director and CEO Kochhar, 54, is regarded even by rival bankers as a “visionary”, Fortune said. “After seven years at the helm of India’s largest private sector lender, with consolidated assets of $139 billion, she has overhauled the nation’s consumer retail business.
