These 4 Indians are among the 100 most powerful women in the world. Find out what sets them apart!

These women have paved the way for many more to take inspiration and do just what your heart tells you to. Defying challenges at every step, today these women lead empires of their own.

Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chanda Kochhar, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and Shobhana Bhartia have earlier gained spots in the Forbes list with the first three jumping up the ladder in rankings. Here is solid proof of the changing dynamics of gender in a country where women are seen at a disadvantage. Here’s how they stand out from the pack:

Arundhati Bhattacharya

This fiery woman of 59 years is the 24^th chairperson, of the nation’s largest public sector banking service, The State Bank of India. Arundhati has bagged the 30^th position in the world famous Forbes list this year climbing 6 spots from 36 in 2014. She is leaving no stone unturned to better the working of the banking service and giving the largest PSU bank a new makeover.

Steeped in bad loans, and restructured loans upto 8.4% of the total loans offered, SBI was facing flak for operating under a strict bureaucratic, technology deficient state-run regime. All this is being changed by Arundhati who is hiring IT experts to change the face of the bank and its speed of reach with new attractive app services and establishing low cost bank back offices in India. Arundhati is working on increasing what she calls ‘customer connect’.

Changing offers of non- performing loans to loans that would bring back enviable profits is no small task, but with Arundhati Bhattacharya at the wheel, one never knows.

Chanda Kochhar

ICICI Bank CEO and Managing Director Chanda Kochhar has brought India’s largest private sector bank to where it thought it would never reach after its financial setback in 2008. She took the right move of focusing on mobile banking to reach rural areas and also made ICICI the largest retail financier just before she took over as the CEO. Chanda is on the 35^th spot in the list, jumping 8 spots from last year.

Chanda is popularly known for pushing the need for clear and transparent banking laws. She heads the retail-business and the international sections of the bank.

Making the bank one of the most recognizable on foreign shores Chanda finds it as necessary to do something for the organization as for her personal development as a banker. That’s a fine balance to follow!

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw

This former brewmaster had no clue that one day she would head a company that made enzymes for use in brewing. After learning her basics in Biocon Biochemicals, Ireland, the 53 year old came back to India with a seed capital of Rs 10,000 to start her own Biocon, which she did in 1978.

Initially the turf was hard to conquer with people doubting her capabilities and refusing to invest money in a startup, that too by a woman. With a retired garage mechanic as her sole employee then, today she heads the largest publicly traded biopharmaceutical company, with a USD of 460 billion in revenue .

Biocon today distributes its products in 85 countries around the world. We are definitely not talking of a baby with a silver spoon.

Kiran figures 85^th in the Forbes list this year against her 92^nd in 2014. Kiran has brought to the front the need to be cost-sensitive when marketing medicines in developing countries so as to make them affordable for everybody. That’s philanthropy anybody can be proud of.

Shobhana Bhartia

Well, coming from the Birla household, this is no surprise at all. This daughter of KK Birla and granddaughter of the famous GD Birla has carved her own niche in more than one industry. She is not only the managing editor of the English Daily Hindustan Times, but heads many radio stations and other business papers. She also recently  took charge as the pro vice-chancellor of BITS Pilani, that her grandfather found.

This former Rajya Sabha member for Congress inherited the Hindustan Times from a pre-independence era and has successfully maneuvered the shift in scenes between pre and post independent India. Never the one for profits, GB Birla passed on his  skills to his granddaughter who learned all her business skills at the dinner table with him.

Today thanks to her hunger for information, HT has branched out into radio, internet and education sectors making HT the second largest read in the country. She has entered the Forbes list holding the 93rd spot on the list of the 100 most powerful women.

These women sure inspire us to do a little more than we do, to dream a little more than we do. Folomojo congratulates these four super-women on their entry into the timeless Forbes list.