Arundhati Bhattacharya, 

As head of India’s largest bank, Bhattacharya was a natural candidate for the top spot. But she zooms to No. 1 due to her relentless fight against bad loans. Since she took over a year or so ago, she has improved asset quality, cut costs, and recapitalised SBI. That’s no mean feat when you consider that SBI has 190 foreign offices, a market cap of Rs 1.9 lakh crore, and 2,22,033 employees. “We haven’t been here for 208 years for nothing. There is something in the DNA of this organisation that makes it very strong,” she says. Her achievements so far include setting up SBI subsidiaries for general insurance, private equity, and pension fund management, as well as SBI’s mobile banking platform.