The 21 Leading Businesswomen in India [ Images ] *

1 Akhila Srinivasan, Managing Director, Shriram Investments Ltd

2 Chanda Kocchar, Executive Director, ICICI Bank [ Get Quote ]

3 Ekta Kapoor [ Images ], Creative Director, Balaji Telefilms [ Get Quote ]

4 Jyoit Naik, President, Lijjat Papad

5 Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairman and Managing Director, Biocon [ Get

Quote ]

6 Lalita D Gupte, Joint Managing Director, ICICI Bank

7 Naina Lal Kidwai [ Images ], Deputy CEO, HSBC

8 Preetha Reddy, Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals [ Get Quote ]

9 Priya Paul, Chairman, Apeejay Park Hotels

10 Rajshree Pathy, Chairman, Rajshree Sugars and Chemicals Ltd

11 Ranjana Kumar [ Images ], Chairman, NABARD

12 Ravina Raj Kohli, Media personality and ex-President, STAR News

13 Renuka Ramnath, CEO, ICICI Ventures

14 Ritu Kumar [ Images ], Fashion Designer

15 Ritu Nanda, CEO, Escolife

16 Shahnaz Hussain, CEO, Shahnaz Herbals

17 Sharan Apparao, Proprietor, Apparao Galleries

18 Simone Tata, Chairman, Trent Ltd [ Get Quote ]

19 Sulajja Firodia Motwani, Joint MD, Kinetic Engineering [ Get Quote ]

20 Tarjani Vakil, former Chairman and Managing Director, EXIM Bank

21 Zia Mody, Senior Partner, AZB & Partners

SALARIES AT THE TOP
Do CEOs earn their salaries?

Annual Co's Co's

Salary
pay* sales profit
Name Designation hike
(Rs growth growth
(%)
crore) (%) (%)

Sunil Bharti CMD, Bharti

Mittal [ Airtel [ Get12.68 78.34 58.47 100.45
Images ] Quote ]

Pawan Kant MD, Hero

15.22 15.74 13.61 -11.68
Munjal Honda

MD, Bajaj
Rajiv Bajaj Auto [ Get2.08 362.20 24.16 10.13
Quote ]

EVP and
Naveen
MD, Jindal13.54 248.00 36.00 23.00
Jindal
Steel

MD, Tata
B
Steel [ Get2.20 13.40 15.36 20.41
Muthuraman
Quote ]

MD and
K V Kamath [ CEO, ICICI
2.48 35.51 60.73 22.45
Images ] Bank [ Get
Quote ]

MD, HDFC
Aditya Puri Bank [ Get1.28 -1.50 53.93 31.08
Quote ]

Pankaj R CMD, Cadila9.93 32.40 13.47 24.14

Patel Healthcare [
 Get Quote ]

CEO,
Malvinder
Ranbaxy [2.62 -2.23 15.13 70.11
Mohan Singh
Get Quote ]

Azim Premji [ CMD, Wipro

2.53 -1.93 33.49 40.66
Images ] [ Get Quote ]

Gajendra ED, Patni

2.00 26.58 13.96 5.84
Patni Computer

Notes: The payments are according to the 2005-06 annual

report; The sales and profit growth figures are for 2006-07

Top ten ceos

Lakshmi N Mittal

[ IMAGE NOT SHOWN - GUESTS CANNOT VIEW

ATTACHED IMAGES ]

Steel tycoon Lakshmi Niwas Mittal is the richest

Indian in the world, with an estimated wealth of
$25 billion. He resides in London, has his company
registered in the Netherlands, but still holds an
Indian passport. Although Mittal Steel was already
the world's biggest steel company, his king-sized
ambitions were evident when he took over steel
giant Arcelor to create a new steel behemoth --
Arcelor-Mittal.

L N Mittal left India in the mid-1970s to start his

career. He was sent to Indonesia by his father to
shut down the family's ailing steel plant and sell
the land. Instead, young Mittal saw an opportunity
and turned the plant around.

To prove that this was no fluke, Mittal acquired a

1.3 million tonne, Iscot Steel plant in Trinidad &
Tobago, which was losing $100,000 a day. One
year of Mittal-style management and it was
making profits, the LN Mittal legend was born.
That move helped him get into America.

The Mexican government seeing the success that

Mittal made of Iscot, asked him to take over their
ailing steel plants in 1992.

But it was not all that smooth. In 1994 Mittal had

differences with his brothers and father, and went
on to form his own company. The following year
Mittal entered the European market, acquiring the
5 million tonne Kazakh steel plant, Karmet.

Meanwhile, Mittal had listed Ispat International on

the New York and Amsterdam Stock Exchanges in
1997. Eight years later Mittal Steel became the
world's largest steel maker when he took over the
US's largest steel producer -- the International
Steel Group. He then consolidated all his steel
holdings into Mittal Steel

---------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------

Ratan Tata

[ IMAGE NOT SHOWN - GUESTS CANNOT VIEW

ATTACHED IMAGES ]
Ratan Naval Tata, a bachelor, is the chairman of
the Tata Group, India's most respected
conglomerate. He was born into a Parsi family in
Mumbai (then called Bombay) to Soonoo and
Naval Hormusji Tata on December 28, 1937.

He did a short stint with Jones and Emmons in Los

Angeles, California, before returning to India in
1962. He had earlier turned down an IBM job
offer.

He joined the family business in 1962 and worked

with many of his group's companies. He took over
as group chairman from the legendary J R D Tata
in 1991.

Since then, he has been instrumental in boosting

the fortunes of the Tata Group, which has
amongst the largest market capitalisations in the
Indian stock markets.

Tata Motors developed the Tata Indica in 1998.

This was the first 'entirely Indian' passenger car.
Ratan Tata's dream now is to manufacture a car
costing just Rs 100,000.

Ratan Tata holds a degree in Architecture and

Structural Engineering from Cornell University. He
has also done the Advanced Management Program
from Harvard Business School in 1974-1975.

Ratan Tata was honoured with one of India's

highest civilian awards, the Padma Bhushan, on
January 26, 2000.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------

Mukesh D Ambani

[ IMAGE NOT SHOWN - GUESTS CANNOT VIEW

ATTACHED IMAGES ]

Mukesh Ambani, the chairman and managing

director of India's largest private sector
enterprise -- Reliance Industries Limited -- was
born on April 19, 1957.

His father, the legendary Dhirubhai Ambani, was

then a small businessman who later on rose to
become one of the legends of Indian industry.

Mukesh joined Reliance Industries in 1981 and

was the brain behind Reliance's backward
integration from textiles into polyester fibres and
into petrochemicals. During the process of
backward integration, Mukesh Ambani led the
creation of 51 new, world-class manufacturing
facilities involving diverse technologies that
raised Reliance's manufacturing capacities
manifold.

The world's largest grassroots petroleum refinery

at Jamnagar is his brainchild. He was also the in-
charge of Dhirubhai's dream project Reliance
Infocomm. But after the split in the Reliance
Empire, Reliance Infocomm went to his brother
Anil.

Mukesh Ambani is now planning to enter retail

sector in a big way and will launch a chain of
'Reliance Fresh' retail stores. He also entered into
an agreement with the Haryana government to
establish a Special Economic Zone with an
investment running into billions of rupees.

He has a bachelor's degree in Chemical

Engineering from University of Bombay and a
master's in Business Administration from Stanford
University, USA.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------

Azim H Premji

[ IMAGE NOT SHOWN - GUESTS CANNOT VIEW

ATTACHED IMAGES ]

Azim Hashim Premji, the chairman of Wipro

Technologies, is one of the richest Indians. He is
an icon among Indian businessmen, especially in
the software industry.

Born on July 24, 1945, Premji was studying

Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, USA
when due to the sudden demise of his father, he
was called upon to handle the family business at
the age of 21.

Wipro was then Western Indian Vegetable

Products, a small cooking oil company. Premji
diversified into bakery fats, ethnic ingredient
based toiletries, hair care soaps, baby toiletries,
lighting products and hydraulic cylinders. And
then shifted focus from soaps to software.

He transformed Wipro into one of India's most

successful IT companies.

Under Azim Premji's stewardship, Wipro has

grown from a fledgling Rs 70 million oil company
into an IT giant with a turnover of $2.4 billion and
an employee strength of 57,000.

Azim Premji has regularly featured in the Forbes'

list of the world's richest people. He was also
rated among the world's 100 most influential
people by the Time magazine.

In 2005, the Indian government honoured him

with Padma Bhushan, one of the nation's highest
civilian awards.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------

Sunil Mittal

[ IMAGE NOT SHOWN - GUESTS CANNOT VIEW

ATTACHED IMAGES ]

Sunil B Mittal is chairman and managing director

of Bharti group. Bharti is India's largest GSM-
based mobile phone service.

Son of a politician, he built his Bharti group, along

with two siblings, into India's largest mobile
phone operator in just ten years. Vodafone and
SingTel both own stakes in recently renamed
flagship Bharti Airtel. The group also has
partnerships with Axa for insurance and with the
Rothschild family for exporting fruits and
vegetables. He plans to go into retailing along
with the world's largest retailer Wal-Mart.

The 49-year-old has always been a pioneer. A first

generation entrepreneur, he started his first
business in 1976 with a capital investment of Rs
20,000. He decided not to be a politician and set
up a small bicycle business in Ludhiana. By 1979,
Sunil Mittal realised that his ambitions could not
be fulfilled in Ludhiana, so he moved out to
Mumbai. He initially founded a number of trading
concerns, and established the first company to
manufacture push button telephones in India.

In 1982, Mittal started a full-fledged business

selling portable generators imported from Japan.
He was one of the first entrepreneurs to identify
the mobile telecom business as a major growth
area and launched services in Delhi in 1995. Under
his leadership the company has gone from
strength to strength.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------