Chanda Kochhar rises in Fortune list of top-50 women business leaders

Four Indians led by ICICI Bank chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director Chanda Kochhar figure in Fortune magazine's latest global list of top- 50 women business leaders.

Kochhar has moved up a rung to the fourth position from the fifth spot in the 2012 list while National Stock Exchange chief Chitra Ramkrishna has made it to the list for the first time at 17th position.

Axis Bank chief Shikha Sharma has also improved her position to be on 32nd position from 37th last year while HSBC's Naina Lal Kidwai slipped to 42nd place from 40th last year.

This list is topped by Brazilian energy giant Petrobras' CEO Maria Das Gracas Foster followed by Turkish conglomerate Sabanci Holding's Guler Sabanci at the second place and Australian banking giant Westpac's CEO Gail Kelly at the third position.

Fortune said that newcomer Ramkrishna has made history as the first woman to head an exchange in India. Ramkrishna, who was part of the core fivemember team selected by the government to create a screenbased exchange in 1993, has become the first woman to head an exchange in India, Fortune said.

The Board is banking on her twenty years of experience to oversee India's largest exchange- seventh largest in the world- with a total listed market capitalisation of some $ 1 trillion, the magazine added.

A separate list of most powerful business women in the US, also complied by Fortune, continues to be topped by technology giant IBM's Ginni Rometty while PepsiCo's Indian- origin CEO Indra Nooyi has retained her second position. DuPont's Ellen Kullman is ranked third followed by Lockheed Martin's Marillyn Hewson and Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg at the fourth and fifth position respectively.

Courtesy: Mail Today