Vinita Gupta, 

Last year wasn't easy for Indian pharma companies, especially Lupin. But Gupta was confident of a change in fortunes. She realised early on that Lupin, the eighth largest generic drugmaker in the world by sales, needed to evolve from being a maker of basic generics into a producer of complex generics and specialty products. Under the joint leadership of Gupta and her brother Nilesh Gupta, Lupin’s managing director, the Mumbai-headquartered firm has adopted a string-of-pearls approach and acquired several companies across the world to gain access to either new markets or therapeutic areas. Gupta has also been active in finding new growth areas for the company, which announced a major foray into women’s healthcare this year. Over the past four years, Lupin’s revenues increased at a compounded annual growth rate of close to 9%.