The Award function held in Mumbai on 29 March 2023 was hosted by Business Today. Union Minister of Women and Child Development and Ministry of Minority Affairs was the chief guest of the 19th edition of 'Most Powerful Women in Business Awards'. She felicitated the top Indian businesswomen that have achieved great success and have worked exemplary towards the welfare of society. Business leaders such as Nita Ambani of the Reliance Foundation, SUGAR Cosmetics Co-founder & CEO Vineeta Singh, Mamaearth Co-founder Ghazal Alagh, Sangita Reddy of Apollo Hospitals Enterprises, Kaku Nakhate of Bank of America, a veteran banker turned tech CEO Arundhati Bhattacharya, and HCL Technologies chairperson Roshni Nadar Malhotra were some of the female business performers honored by Minister Smriti Irani.
There was a total of 55 female business achievers who were acknowledged and presented with the awards. They demonstrated both continuity and change in society. Among the 55 winners, 31 of them were repeating winners from last year, 9 debutantes, and 7 comebacks from the previous year who have grabbed awards from various sectors like entertainment, textiles, banking, Pharma, manufacturing, and start-ups.
Nita Ambani of Reliance Foundation, Kaku Nakhate of Bank of America, and Priya Nair of Unilever are the seven-time winners of MPW. They have secured their places on BT's renowned MPW Hall of Fame.
The highlight of the award ceremony was a speech by Ms. Smriti Irani on the topic 'Leveraging India's Better Half for Economic and Social Growth.'
The event started with a discussion on "Leadership Female Quotient" with Tarun Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor of Harvard Business School, at Mumbai's St Regis Hotel. Several other business leaders were present and gave their viewpoints on the event. The leaders include, Zia Mody the Co-founder & Managing Partner of AZB & Partners, Swati Piramal the Vice Chairperson of Piramal Group, Arundhati Bhattacharya the Chairperson and CEO of Salesforce, India, Nandita Das a Filmmaker and Actor and several other distinguished figures from sports, business, and entertainment were present who mentioned about the challenges and barriers that women face in the workplaces, they also discussed on how to overcome them.
Discussions on the hot topics that society should be aware of were presented at the event. Roshni Nadar Malhotra, the CEO of HCL Corporation and Chairwoman of HCl Technology spoke about "Business and Society: Marrying the Two", Masaba Gupta of the House of Masaba presented her view on "Starry Stripes, Fashion and Celeb Fusion", Vineeta Singh, Co-founder and CEO of SUGAR Cosmetics said on "Women on the Pitch: Shifting Dealscape", Co-founder & Chairperson of Portea Medical, Meena Ganesh along with the MD of Metropolis Healthcare, Ameera Shah had a panel discussion on "The Entrepreneurial Itch", Ghazal and Varun Alagh of D2C brand Mamaearth spoke on "Coupling Success. Team Work". The event was also attended by top Indian women cricketers and former Indian cricketers Jemimah Rodrigues and Harleen Deol with Jhulan Goswami respectively. Hrishikesh Kanitkar, the coach of the Indian cricket team was present which featured "Trailblazers: Cricket's New Icons".
A panel discussion on 'Women@Work.Breaking Glass Ceilings' was moderated by Ashima Goyal, Member of the RBI Monetary Policy Committee, Suman Mishra the CEO of Mahindra Last Mile Mobility, Daisy Chittilapilly the President of Cisco India and SAARC, and Jyoti Deshpande the CEO of Viacom18 Media.
This event is a much-anticipated follow-up to the special magazine issue of the same name that was published a few weeks ago by Business Today. It was the very first publication in India to promote this magnificent yearly list of star female achievers which started back in 2003.
