SBI’s Bhattacharya again tops list of most powerful biz women

Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson of country's largest bank SBI, remains the most powerful woman in the Indian business sector, according to Fortune India. ICICI Bank's Chanda Kochhar and Shikha Sharma of Axis Bank follow Bhattacharya at the second and third place, respectively.

Besides, HPCL Chairperson and Managing Director (MD) Nishi Vasudeva has bagged the fourth position, while AZB & Partners Co-Founder Zia Mody and Aruna Jayanthi Chief Executive of Capgemini India shared the fifth rank. Interestingly, all the top-five rank holders retained their positions from the previous year barring Jayanthi who was at seventh position last year. Moreover, there are only two debutantes in the Fortune India list of 50 most-powerful businesswomen for 2015.

Meena Ganesh MD and CEO at Portea and Jyoti Deshpande Group MD and CEO at Eros International have made their debuts at 43rd and 50th positions, respectively. On SBI chief, the magazine said: "SBI's financials tell the story of her successful tenure, but it is Bhattacharya's drive that has strengthened her position at the top." "In her short career as first woman heading one of the oldest commercial banks in the region, Bhattacharya was instrumental in pushing several reforms, including revision of terms for infrastructure loan," Fortune India noted. 

These powerful women represent various sectors such as banking, finance, energy, healthcare, media, fashion and entertainment. These women are in the age group of 40 to 71. The other women who figure in the top 10 are Preetha Reddy MD Apollo Hospital Enterprise (seventh), Mallika Srinivasan CEO of TAFE (eighth), Yasmin Hilton Chairperson Shell India (ninth), and Chitra Rama Krishna MD and CEO at NSE (tenth).

 

Among others who made to the list are Kiran Mazumdar Shaw Chairperson and MD at Biocon, Renu Sud Karnad MD HDFC, Shobhana Bhartia Chairperson HT Media, Anita Dongre Founder of House of Anita Dongre, Ekta Kapoor Joint MD Balaji Telefilms and Ritu Kumar Founder of Ritu Kumar Designs. Meanwhile the bank, which saw a drop in bad loans in the July-September quarter, has stepped up efforts to bring down NPAs further to the last financial year’s level.

“We have taken various steps to control NPA. We will not allow it to rise during the current fiscal,” SBI Managing Director Rajnish Kumar said. The gross NPAs of the bank were at Rs 56,725 crore, or 4.2 per cent of the total advances, at the end of March 2015.

Asset quality of the bank improved to 4.15 per cent in July-September 2015 from 4.89 per cent or at Rs 58,834 crore in previous quarter. The net NPA stood at 2.14 per cent in second quarter from 2.73 per cent or at Rs 28,592 crore in the first quarter. Giving details of NPA situation, Kumar said, bad loans differ from sector to sector. “If you look at our portfolio, most of the NPAs are SME and mid-corporate. In personal segment we don’t have NPA which is beyond tolerance level,” he said. There are issues with regard to small and medium enterprises and mid-corporate segment, he said, adding the bank is taking steps like assessing situation of each and every account and preparing solution and effective engagement with borrowers.