Renuka Ramnath's private-equity firm, Multiples Alternate Asset Management, which she set up thereafter, is riding high. "I underestimated the response from the market. I no longer had a large institution behind me. Yet what has surprised me is that we have been able to look at every transaction any large, established PE fund would get a chance to do," she says.

Since August 2011, Multiples has invested Rs 450 crore of its sector-agnostic fund's Rs 2,000 crore corpus in four deals, including in Indian Energy Exchange and South Indian Bank. The current weak economic conditions do not worry her.

"Even now, there are low-hanging fruits to capture," she says. And, she sure knows which ones to pick.

KNOW YOUR LEADERS
Preetha Reddy	Kalpana Morparia	Shobhana Bhartia	Zia Mody	Renu Sud Karnad
Ritu Kumar	Debjani Ghosh	Neha Kirpal	Leena Nair	Renuka Ramnath
Tanya Dubash	Sangeeta Pendurkar	Archana Hingorani	Roopa Kudva	Schauna Chauhan Saluja
Aisha De Sequeira	Arathi Krishna	Vinita Bali	Kirthiga Reddy	Zarin Daruwala
Jyotsna Suri	Ekta Kapoor	Abanti Sankaranarayanan	Vinita Gupta	Aruna Jayanthi
Lynn De Souza	Chiki Sarkar	Nita Ambani	Meher Pudumjee