Asia's 9 Most Powerful Indian Businesswomen

Shikha Sharma

Shikha Sharma is the CEO and MD of Axis Bank, India. Sharma might be of a compact frame but delivers results like a wiz. Her career started with ICICI Bank in the field of personal financial services. Narayanan Vaghul, former chairman of ICICI Bank, quotes the typical reaction of women in the field of finance, “A lot of people were skeptical." But as fate would have it, Sharma proved all such disbelievers wrong. Vaghul was the one who urged Sharma to head ICICI Prudential Life Insurance. ICICI Prudential Life Insurance has been the most successful insurance firm in India under her, with over 200,000 policies been sold. Vaghul further says, "She built an entire new business in insurance and became a leader in no time." She started heading Axis Bank in the year 2009. Her work on Axis Bank has shown outstanding results since. Its Q3 (2011-12) results are as follows – it registered a rise of 23.5 percent in Net interest income, a year-on-year rise from 1,733 crore to 2,140 crore.  She thanks ICICI Bank to give her the much needed boost in a period of turmoil. "The opportunities I got at ICICI, I would have never got elsewhere. I think God has a design for each one of us."