Roshni Nadar, Divya Gokulnath, Ameera Shah and Vinati Saraf — India’s most powerful businesswomen of 2020, according to Forbes

Age: 38

38-year old Roshni grew up in Delhi and holds a Masters in Business Administration from Kellogg. She is the only child of tech billionaire Shiv Nadar, who founded HCL Technologies in 1976. Nadar started her career as a news producer in the UK. However, at the age of 27, she joined her father’s company.

In July this year, Roshni Nadar became the first woman to head a listed Indian IT company as she took over as the Chairperson of $8.9 billion HCL Technologies.

Age: 34

About a decade ago, Divya Gokulnath co-founded Byju’s, an online learning platform, along with her husband, Byju Raveendran. It is now one of the world’s most valuable startups.

Online ed-tech platforms like Byju’s have seen unprecedented growth in users due to COVID-19 — raking billions of dollars in investments.

When PM Modi announced the COVID-19 lockdown in India, Byju’s decided to give free access to its learning content. Between March and April, it added 13.5 million consumers — taking the total to 50 million. Five months on, Byju’s now has 70 million students and over 4.5 million paid subscribers. It also added BlackRock, Sands Capital, and Alkeon Capital as investors a few days ago.

Age: 41

Ameera Shah is at the helm of a global pathology empire Metropolis Healthcare worth ₹88.15 billion.

At the age of 21, young Shah was working with Goldman Sachs in New York. However, she quit the company to join a startup, which had only five employees at the time. She returned from the US in 2001 to become an entrepreneur. Unlike other uber-rich kids, Shah did not begin at the management position in her father’s company. She started at the customer service department and worked her way up the ranks in the company.

Over fifteen years, she turned her father's single laboratory into a multi-billion dollar business. Metropolis has over 125 clinical labs across 210 cities in India. Last year, she decided to take her company public. The share price of Metropolis has gone up nearly 60% in 12 months.

This year, her company became the first private company to get the government’s approval for COVID-19 testing.

Age: 36

In 2006, newly graduated Vinati joined her father’s chemical company, Vinati Organic (VOL), as an Executive Director. In the last fourteen years, VOL has witnessed a 500 fold increase in market cap and a 16-fold increase in sales, according to Forbes. Moreover, VOL has also increased its profits from ₹66 crore in 2006 to ₹1000 crore in 2020.

When she joined the company, it was mostly doing business domestically. However, today VOL’s 75% sales come from export.

In 2018, Mutreja was promoted from executive director to the CEO of the company.