Chanda Kochhar tops Fortune power list

Indian bankers Chanda Kochhar and Arundhati Bhattacharya have been ranked as the top two in a list of most powerful women in Asia-Pacific prepared by the global magazine Fortune.

Ms Kochhar, 53, who heads the country’s largest private sector lender ICICI Bank, has been ranked at the top, up from the second position last year, the magazine said on its website.

It credited Ms Kochhar with reshaping banking in the country, and for building ICICI Bank into the “nation’s largest and most profitable private sector lender”.

She is followed by Ms Arundhati Bhattacharya, the chairman of the country’s largest lender State Bank of India, whose ranking has also moved up from the fourth spot she was at last year, the magazine added.

State-run oil marketing company Hindustan Petroleum Corporation’s chairperson and managing director Nishi Vasudeva has also made it to the list at fifth rank, same as previous, it said.

Country’s third largest private sector lender Axis Bank’s managing director and chief executive Shikha Sharma comes in at the ninth spot in the list.

Singapore-based chief executive of Internati-onal Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Sheila Patel, has also made it to the list at the 23rd position. The list includes key executives from over six countries in the region. With 11 names, Chinese women lead the list.