Meet India's Powerful Businesswomen

Chanda Kochhar

Chanda Kochhar, who heads the ICICI Bank, the world's largest private bank, in the country has been ranked as the most powerful Indian women in business. Chanda began her career in 1984 as a management trainee and successfully rose through the ranks by handling multidimensional assignments and leading all the major functions in the Bank at various points of time. Since 2006, she has been the head of international Banking arm of ICICI Bank. The corporate Diva has wide experience in the fields of corporate credit, e-commerce strategy, infrastructure financing, and retail business. She worked as a Joint Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer of ICICI Bank from October 2007 to April 2009. Chanda served as the Chief Financial Officer of Corporate Centre at ICICI Bank and was also the official spokesperson. In addition to finance, planning, and communications; her responsibilities included the global treasury, principal investments and trading, risk management, and legal functions. From May 2009, she was appointed the CEO and MD of ICICI Bank for a period of five years succeeding K. V. Kamath, who held the post since 1996. Chanda is honored with Padma Bhushan Award, the third highest civilian honor by the Government of India in 2010 for her services to banking sector.