Tough enough: Naina Lal Kidwai

Naina Lal Kidwai
53, Country Head, HSBC
(Number of times in BT's Most Powerful list: 7)

Biggest achievement in 2010: Elevated to HSBC's Asia-Pacific board Being a powerful woman is important because: You have to be powerful to think what it is like to be powerful Tip for work-life balance: Enjoy what you do A workplace without women is: A workplace without diversity of thoughts and ideas

She is one of the more famous personifications of the India growth story. Naina Lal Kidwai, Head of HSBC in India, was called to the board of Swiss foods giant Nestl a few years ago; and in August she was elevated to HSBC's Asia-Pacific board.

The region accounts for a little over half of the profits of HSBC Holdings. Kidwai has been with HSBC for eight years, a period during which the Indian banking operations have emerged the seventh-largest contributor to group profits. And the ambition to make HSBC India even more significant still burns brightly.

-Anand Adhikari

The 30 Most Powerful Women
1. Schauna Chauhan 2. Zarin Daruwala 3. Lynn de Souza 4. Tanya Dubash 5. Shyamala Gopinath 6. Vinita Gupta 7. Kaku Nakhate 8. Vedika Bhandarkar 9. Manisha Girotra 10. Lalita Gupte 11. Usha Narayanan 12. Akhila Srinivasan 13. Leena Nair 14. Vinita Bali 15. Chanda Kochhar	16. Roopa Kudva 17. Naina Lal Kidwai 18. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw 19. Zarina Mehta 20. Zia Mody 21. Kalpana Morparia 22. Vishakha Mulye 23. Swati Piramal 24. Meher Pudumjee 25. Madhabi Puri Buch 26. Chitra Ramkrishna 27. Preetha Reddy 28. Shikha Sharma 29. Mallika Srinivasan 30. Sangeeta Talwar