Lady pluck: Swati Piramal

Swati Piramal
54, President ASSOCHAM; Director, Piramal Healthcare
(Number of times in BT's Most Powerful list: 7)

Biggest achievement in 2010: Making ASSOCHAM seek out opinions instead of waiting for opinions to come in Being a powerful woman is important because: Women have this inclusive way of finding solutions Tip for work-life balance: If your work is a source of joy, life finds its balance A workplace without women is like: Life without colours

Swati Piramal, President of industry body Assocham, believes the opinions communicated by the business chambers in India are often the ones forwarded by the most active members. "I goaded the chamber to get views of all the stakeholders, not just the ones who are most active," says Piramal.

A director at Piramal Healthcare and Vice Chairperson at Piramal Life Sciences, Piramal saw her company seal the largest ever in-bound pharma deal so far when Piramal Healthcare sold its domestic formulations business to Abbott for Rs 17,000 crore.

However, Piramal is more kicked about her achievements at Assocham. As the first woman to head an apex chamber in India, Piramal had insisted that the 100 sub-committees at Assocham this year should be headed by women. And she claims that these 100 women - from Naina Lal Kidwai to Juhi Chawla - have made a difference. "There is a way in which a woman approaches a job," notes Piramal.
-Suman Layak

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