Chanda Kochhar, 

Her first two years in the corner office on the 10th floor of ICICI Bank’s headquarters were spent in getting India’s largest private sector bank back on its feet; the third was spent making sure that the balance sheet grew a healthy 17% to Rs 4.73 lakh crore. A stickler for discipline and efficiency, Chanda Kochhar has deftly balanced growth with profitability, pushing up ICICI Bank’s valuation by almost two-thirds since she took over. But that hasn’t been enough. Kochhar is aiming for a 15% return on equity (the bank closed FY12 at 11%), and has been driving her top team to increase profitability ratios, which in turn will drive the return on equity. She has also been steadily growing her spread by getting on the banking consortiums of some top global companies, as well as becoming the largest acquirer of no-frills accounts at 4.9 million in the last fiscal.