HCL’s Roshni Nadar to Nykaa CEO: Meet India’s Wealthiest Women

The average wealth of women on this list is about Rs 2,725 crore and the threshold for the ranking is Rs 100 crore.

Left: Roshni Nadar Malhotra, Right: Falguni Nayar.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Video Producer: Shohini Bose
Video Editor: Sandeep Suman

Chairperson of HCL Technologies Roshni Nadar Malhotra is India’s wealthiest woman, according to the "Kotak Wealth Hurun – Leading Wealthy Women" list, followed by Biocon’s Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and USV’s Leena Gandhi Tewari.

The compilation of India’s wealthiest women, announced on 3 December, is based on the net worth of women as on 30 September 2020 and focuses exclusively on women who play an active role in their family business, entrepreneurs and professionals.

The average wealth of the 100 women on this list is about Rs 2,725 crore, while the threshold for the ranking is Rs 100 crore.

Who Is Roshni Nadar?

With an estimated wealth of Rs 54,850 crore, Roshni Nadar Malhotra is currently the CEO and Executive Director of HCL Corporation. She is the first-ever woman to lead a listed IT company in India.

She is also the only child of HCL's founder Shiv Nadar. A year earlier, Nadar Malhotra made it to the Forbes World's 100 Most Powerful Women list.

(Photo: Aroop Mishra/TheQuint)

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw Wealthiest Self-Made Woman On List

Biocon founder and MD Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, is the wealthiest self-made woman on the list with a wealth of Rs 36,600 crore, followed by Leena Gandhi Tewari (Rs 21,340 crore) who chairs privately-held USV, a leader in both diabetic and cardiovascular medicines in India.

(Photo: Aroop Mishra/TheQuint)

Placed fourth and fifth are Nilima Motaparti ( Rs 18,620 crore) and Radha Vembu (Rs 11,590 crore) respectively.

While Motaparti is the director of Divi’s Laboratories while Vembu is owner of a majority stake in Zoho Corporation – an Indian software development company, an IIT-Madras graduate, Vembu co-founded Zoho with her brother Sridhar Vembu in 1996.

Radha Vembu.(Photo: Aroop Mishra/TheQuint)

8 Padma Awardees, 31 Self-Made Women

There are eight Padma Awardees on the list and of the 31 self-made women on the list, six are professional managers and 25 are entrepreneurs.

(Photo: Aroop Mishra/TheQuint)

Six women entrepreneurs from the start-up ecosystem feature on the list, of which two have built their companies into unicorns – Falguni Nayar of Nykaa and Divya Gokulnath of Byju's (Think & Learn).

Nineteen women are aged 40 or below – JetSetGo’s Kanika Tekriwal, Universal Sportsbiz’s Anjana Reddy, and Sun Pharma ‘s Vidhi Shanghvi, are the youngest women on the list.

Pharmaceuticals and Textiles, Apparel & Accessories dominate, accounting for 25 percent of the list. This is followed by Healthcare and Financial Services with a share of 9 percent and 8 percent, respectively, IANS reported.

15% of India’s Wealthiest Women From Non-Metro Cities

With 32 individuals, Mumbai tops the list followed by New Delhi (20) and Hyderabad (10) – 15 percent of the women on the list hail from non-metropolitan areas.

Interestingly, 19 women from this list also feature in the Hurun India Rich List 2020. And six women have made it to the Hurun Global Rich List 2020 of which Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon, Vembu and Jayshree Ullal of Arista Networks are self-made women entrepreneurs.

(With inputs from IANS)