Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairman, State Bank of India, and Chanda Kochhar, MD and CEO, ICICI Bank, have been named in the annual Forbes magaine’s ‘100 Most Powerful Women’ list. Bhattacharya is now ranked 30 in the list, moving up six spots since last year. Kochhar is ranked 35th moving up from her 43rd position last year. Forbes said “Bhattacharya oversees 220,000 staff members in 16,000 branches and services 225 million customers at the country’s largest lender (assets $400 billion) with offices spread over 36 countries. Under her leadership, SBI undertook various initiatives in technology banking such as sbiINTOUCH digital banking outlet, SBI Tech Learning Centres for educating customers, SBI e-Pay a payment aggregator service to mention a few.” With regard to Kochhar, the magazine said she has been credited with “leading a remarkable transformation” at ICICI Bank and her focus on ‘mobile banking’ in rural areas to reach more clients has been praised as a model for low cost expansion in a country with a burgeoning middle class.
