Roshni Nadar Malhotra

The first woman to head up a listed IT company in India, Roshni Nadar Malhotra inherited the chairperson role at HCL Technologies from her father, Shiv Nadar, who founded the company in 1976. With a personal wealth of $10.1 billion, Malhotra consistently ranks as one of the richest women in India. While CEO C. Vijayakumar oversees many of HCL Tech’s day-to-day operations, Malhotra is in charge of strategic decisions at the firm, India’s third-largest IT services player. Over the past 12 months, this has involved forging a global partnership with Verizon to help the company manage networks for its business clients. In March, the company posted full-year revenue of $12.6 billion, a 9% increase year on year. In addition to leading 225,000 employees across 60 countries, Malhotra, who has also worked as a TV producer, is the chairperson of VidyaGyan, a leadership academy for gifted students living in rural regions of India.