Fortune Magazine recently announced its list of 100 Most Powerful Women in the world. In the list are 7 women of Indian origin, of which 6 are based in the United States and 1 in India.
This is the 29th year of the list which “highlights the leaders commanding boardrooms, markets, and industries,” Fortune says. In its breakdown of the list, Fortune notes the 100 women lead 94 companies employing 11.8 million people, and generating $7.3 trillion in annual revenue. Women in the US dominate the list, followed far behind by mainland China with 9, France and UK with 6 each.
The Indian women listed and ranked include – from the US – Reshma Kewalramani, 9th; Gunjan Kedia, 14th; Jayshree Ullal, 31st; Bela Bajaria, 35th; Meena Lakdavala-Flynn, 74th; and Revathi Advaithi, 75th.
Roshni Nadar-Malhotra, 33rd is the only one from India.
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Kewalramani is the Chief Executive Officer and President at Vertex, a Fortune 500, global biotechnology company. She trained in internal medicine and nephrology before entering the biopharmaceutical industry, where she has dedicated her career to discovering and developing new medicines, her biography on the company website says. She joined Vertex in 2017, served as Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President of GlobalMedicines Development and Medical Affairs, and became CEO in 2020. She has received numerous honors and awards for her leadership and contributions to science and innovation.
Born in Mumbai, Kewalramani came to the US at the age of 11.
Kedia is the chairman of the board and chief executive officer of U.S. Bancorp, the fifth-largest commercial bank in the country. The company website notes she became CEO in April 2025 after serving as president since 2024. She was appointed chairman in 2026. She previously served as vice chair of Wealth, Corporate, Commercial and Institutional Banking.
Kedia has 30 years of financial services experience to her role. Before joining U.S. Bancorp in 2016, she led the investment servicing business in the Americas at State Street Financial and was a member of its Managing Committee. In 2004, Kedia joined Bank of New York Mellon, where she served as an executive vice president and head of global product management for its global asset servicing business. Previously, she was a partner at McKinsey & Co. and a core leader of its financial services practice. She began her career at Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC).
Kedia serves on the boards of the American Red Cross, PBS and the Carnegie Mellon Business School. She has a bachelor’s degree with distinction in engineering from the Delhi School of Engineering and an MBA with distinction from Carnegie Mellon University.
Ullal is Founding CEO since 2008 and now Chairperson of Arista. She is responsible for Arista’s thought-leadership in modern AI, Cloud and enterprise networking.
She has led the company to a historic IPO in June 2014, and driven rapid growth, from zero to a multibillion-dollar S&P 500 company with a $200+B market cap, the company website notes.
Formerly, Ullal was Senior Vice President at Cisco, responsible for a $10B business in datacenter, switching and services. With more than 40 years of networking and technology experience in the silicon valley, she is the recipient of numerous awards including E&Y’s “Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2015, Barron’s “World’s Best CEOs” in 2018 and one of Fortune’s “Top 20 Business Persons” in 2019. She was awarded “Global Indian of the Year” by the Economic Times in 2023 and was named a “Silicon Valley Power 100” in the Silicon Valley Business Journal in 2023 and 2024.
Bajaria joined Netflix in 2016 and rose to become Chief Content Officer in January 2023. She oversees the teams responsible for all Netflix content from around the world, the company says, including series ‘Stranger Things,’ ‘Squid Game,’ ‘Wednesday,’ ‘Bridgerton,’ ‘Heeramandi’ and ‘Lupin,’ and films including ‘Leave the World Behind,’ ‘Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F’ and Oscar® winners ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ and ‘Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.’
Bajaria led Netflix’s push into live events and sports with specials such as ‘Chris Rock: Selective Outrage,’ ‘The Roast of Tom Brady’ and multiyear deals with the NFL and WWE.
Prior to Netflix, she was President of Universal Television.
Bajaria serves on the board of The Coca-Cola Company, the LA Board of Governors for the Paley Center, the board of LA’s Saban Community Clinic and the Board of Trustees for Meridian International Center.
Lakdavala-Flynn is co-head of global Private Wealth Management (PWM). She is also co-head of One Goldman Sachs, the firm’s cross-business strategy to provide a comprehensive and integrated approach to serving the company’s global client franchise, the website says.
Additionally, Flynn serves as vice chair of the Firmwide Client Franchise Committee, is a member of the Partnership Committee and serves on the Wealth Management Operating Group.
Prior to her current role, Lakdavala-Flynn was global head of the Markets Group (MSG).
According to her bio on the company website, earlier in her career, she served as head of the Markets Coverage Group within MSG. She joined Goldman Sachs in 2000, was named managing director in 2008 and partner in 2014. Prior to joining the firm, Flynn worked at JP Morgan in the Global Capital Markets Group within the Investment Banking Division.
Lakdavala Flynn is a member of the UNICEF International Council and the Athletic Advisory Council for George Washington University. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from George Washington University with a BA in Economics. She is a chartered financial analyst.
Advaithi is the CEO of Flex, the end to end manufacturing partner that helps leading brands design, source, build, deliver and manage products.
Since 2019, Advaithi has led Flex’s workforce spanning 30 countries “in a transformation to define a new era in manufacturing,” the company website says about her.
Prior to Flex, she was president and chief operating officer for the electrical sector business at Eaton, with corporate responsibility for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa regions. During her tenure, she led several strategic initiatives, including digital technology transformation and globally distributed innovation centers. In addition to her time at Eaton, Advaithi worked at Honeywell for six years in leadership roles spanning manufacturing, procurement, supply chain, and sourcing.
She is a recognized advocate for public-private collaboration in manufacturing. In 2023, she was appointed to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations and the Advisory Committee on Supply Chain Competitiveness by the U.S. President. She serves on the Boards of Uber and the MIT Presidential CEO Advisory Board, and is a member of the Business Roundtable. She has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, India, and earned an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.
Nadar-Malhotra is the Chairperson of HCLTech, a leading global technology organization with a market capitalization of $55 billion, and the Chairperson of its CSR Board Committee.
She is a Trustee of the Shiv Nadar Foundation. Since its inception, the Shiv Nadar Foundation has invested $1.5 billion in nation building institutions and driving transformational leadership.
Nadar-Malhotra is also the Chairperson and driving force behind VidyaGyan, a leadership academy for the economically underprivileged, meritorious, rural students of Uttar Pradesh, and has been working towards nurturing future leaders from rural India who can be catalysts of change for their communities, villages and the nation at large, her company profile says.
In the wildlife and conservation field, she established The Habitats Trust in 2018, to work towards protecting India’s natural habitats and its indigenous species. Since 2019, she has been producing an award-winning episode series on the most endangered wildlife species in India – ‘On The Brink’.
She is a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council at the MIT School of Engineering, USA and also a member of the Kellogg School of Management Executive Board for Asia. She serves on the board of directors of US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) and is on the global board of directors of The Nature Conservancy (TNC). She is also an independent director on the board of the HDFC Asset Management Company.
Nadar-Malhotra graduated in Communications from Northwestern University and earned an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.