WOMEN IN ALL SPHERES

1. Chhavi Rajawat

Chhavi Rajawat was the Sarpanch of her village Soda, 60

kilometres (37 mi) from Jaipur. Though holding an elected
post, Chhavi is not affiliated to any political party. The
Panchayats are officially supposed to be non-partisan and
Panchayat elected representatives thereby, do not fit into
the bracket of mainstream politics. She has been reported
to be the youngest person to hold the office of sarpanch.

Rajawat was born in Jaipur, Rajasthan. She is from a small

village called Soda in Malpura tehsil, Tonk district. She is
an alumna of Balaji Institute of Modern Management
Pune.

Rajawat left her corporate job and city life to help develop rural India. She became
the Sarpanch (Head of a Village) of Soda, a village sixty kilometers from Jaipur,
Rajasthan. Her grandfather Brig Raghubir Singh had been Sarpanch of the same
village 20 years prior to Chhavi's elections. She is very good in meeting with people
and she is taking a lead in development of Soda village. After becoming the Sarpanch
of the village, she has implemented many projects successfully i.e. rain water
harvesting, toilets facilities in most of the houses, etc.

The Times of India, a leading English newspaper in India, credits her as the changing
face of rural Rajasthan.

On 25 March 2011, Rajawat made a well-received address to delegates at the 11th

Infopoverty World Conference held at the United Nations.

On late President of India APJ Abdul Kalam at the Technology Day function at New
Delhi.

Chhavi Rajawat was honoured "Young Indian Leader" by IBNLive.

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 2. Hemalatha Annamalai

Hemalatha Annamalai who ran a successful HR

consulting firm, Uni Connect, in Singapore,
moved back to India along with her husband
and kids to start Ampere Electric in 2008.

She came across the idea in 2007 after

attending a conference in Japan, along with her
husband Bala Pachyappa when one of the speakers highlighted that electric mobility
is the future of transport

After extensive R&D, planning and brainstorming, she was successful in developing
the first electric scooter from scratch. Yet, instead of targeting major metropolitan
cities across the country, Hemalatha decided to offer her innovation to customers in
rural and semi-urban regions.

Her vision received support from none other than Ratan Tata himself. Along with this
Infosys co-founder, Kris Gopalakrishnan became another one of the major early
investors in the company.

Today, the company has sold over 20,000 vehicles and has the capacity to
manufacture 30,000 vehicles annually.

3. Falguni Nayar - Entrepreneur, Head of NYKAA

A graduate of IIM, Ahmedabad, Falguni

Nayar worked almost two decades as an
investment banker and broker with the
Kotak Mahindra Group.

In 2005, she became the Managing Director

of the investment banking business where
she successfully spearheaded the firm to be
India’s leading IPO banker and was
instrumental in closing several successful M&As (Mergers and Acquisitions).

However, her entrepreneurial spirit dominated, and the years of experience and
successful interactions gave her the confidence to start her own health and beauty
brand, now famously known as Nykaa.

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Nykaa makes a wide catalogue of beauty products available at the doorsteps of
millions of Indians. The store has been created with a lot of advice and concern-
based selection for products.

It has also been a front-runner in bringing international luxury brands to India, giving
Indian customers all-encompassing products and services to choose from. Today,
Nykaa is evaluated at $750 million.

4. Sudha Murthy

Sudha Murty (nee Kulkarni; born 19 August 1950) is

an Indian educator, author and philanthropist who is
chairperson of the Infosys Foundation. She is
married to the co-founder of Infosys, N. R. Narayana
Murthy. Murty was awarded the Padma Shri, the
fourth highest civilian award in India, for social work
by the Government of India in 2006.

Sudha Murty began her professional career in computer science and engineering. She
is the chairperson of the Infosys Foundation and a member of the public health care
initiatives of the Gates Foundation. She has founded several orphanages, participated
in rural development efforts, supported the movement to provide all Karnataka
government schools with computer and library facilities, and established Murty
Classical Library of India at Harvard University.

Sudha Murty became the first female engineer hired at India's largest auto
manufacturer TATA Engineering and Locomotive Company (TELCO). [citation needed]
She joined the company as a Development Engineer in Pune and then worked in
Mumbai & Jamshedpur as well. She had written a postcard to the company's
Chairman complaining of the "men only" gender bias at TELCO. As a result, she was
granted a special interview and hired immediately. She later joined Walchand Group
of Industries at Pune as Senior Systems Analyst.

In 1996, she started Infosys Foundation and to date has been the Trustee of Infosys
Foundation and a Visiting Professor at the PG Center of Bangalore University. She
also taught at Christ University.

Sudha Murty has written and published many books which include novels, non-
fiction, travelogues, technical books, and memoirs. Her books have been translated
into all major Indian languages. She is also a columnist for English and Kannada
newspapers.

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 5. Malavika Hegde

The emergence of Cafe Coffee Day is regarded as one

of India's finest home-grown success stories.
Entrepreneur VG Siddhartha's venture, which he
founded and launched, revolutionised the country's
coffee culture and quick hangout spots. However, the
company went deeply in debt, which resulted in
Siddhartha dying by suicide. According to sources, the
corporation had a debt of Rs 7200 crore. When his wife
Malavika Hegde took over as CEO of CCD, the company was practically written off the
commercial map. She worked relentlessly to ensure the success of the business that
her late husband had established.

Malavika, the daughter of former Karnataka Chief Minister SM Krishna, worked for
the company for many years as a non-board member and quickly learned the
business model.

Malavika promised to decrease the debt to a reasonable level in a letter to the

company's 25,000 employees. Despite the company's rising debt, Malavika never
raised the price of the coffees that were sold. She removed hundreds of coffee
vending machines that had been put at various IT parks and firms, in addition to
shuttering many locations that were not profitable.

She was also effective in acquiring new investors, which allowed her to increase the
company's capital. The debt was reduced to Rs 3100 crore by the end of March 2020,
and then to Rs 1731 crore by the end of March 2021. Even during the pandemic, she
was praised for her efficiency in running the shops.

Café Coffee Day now includes over 572 locations across the United States.

Her 20,000-acre coffee farm produces high-quality coffee beans that are in high
demand around the world. In addition, there are around 36,000 coffee vending
machines located in various organizations and businesses.

Malavika's ambition is to turn CCD into a multibillion-dollar corporation free of

debt and expand coffee shops to every corner of the country, following in the
footsteps of her late husband.

Despite the fact that many feared the company would never recover, Malavika rose
from the ashes like a phoenix.

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 6. Dr. Srimathy Kesan (Founder and CEO of SKI)

Dr. Srimathy, Founder & CEO of a leading Science

and Technology incubator- “Space Kidz India”
(SKI), is helping children reach out to the stars,
quite literally. Launched in 2011, Space Kidz India
has designed and pioneered multiple programs
that are aimed at creating the next generation of
scientific thinkers in India.

Driven with a mission to disrupt the mundanity

of the Indian education system, Dr. Srimathy has
broken ground in a hitherto uncharted avenue called “Space Education” through her
unique programs, aimed at grooming India’s future scientists. Her ultimate goal is to
lay the foundation for a World renowned Space University with manufacturing port
in India.

She is the only Indian to be decorated with the Ambassador status to the top 3 Space
centres of the World, NASA, ESA and GCTC – Moscow. Apart from taking children to
these research centres for hands on Space training – Rocket building and launching
techniques, Satellite making, she has also invited Cosmonaut Salizan Sharipov
(Director of Yuri Gagarin Space Centre, Moscow) and Astronaut Marsha Ivins (NASA)
to India to meet with Indian students and share their Space travel experience and to
motivate students, Retd. Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma – Hero of Soviet Union,
Space traveller and the only Indian Cosmonaut had also shared his expertise with
these students.

“Creating Young Scientists and Young Leaders for the Country” is her main motto and
for which she had designed a metric to hand pick them. “Young Scientist India”,
“Youth Icon”, and “I4 India – Innovate for India” are annual contests, a unique
avenue to promote innovations in the field of Science and Technology for high school
and University students, apart from hand picking the core team of Young Scientists,
they are then mentored, funded to create path breaking live projects. Building and
Launching Satellites by High school and University students was her dream which
came true in the year 2015, where her SKI team of Young scientists built and
launched the 1st ever “Near Space Launch Vehicle, NSLV a Balloon Satellite named
NSLV.KALAM.1 that was flown to stratosphere 1,07,000 ft and created numerous
records and especially special mention in the Limca book of records for being the first
student team to launch a high altitude balloon from India and reach an Altitude of

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1,07,000ft. Subsequently, have been successful in launching 9 NSLV’s from different
parts of India. Highly accoladed for this unique idea several Universities have
collaborated with SKI to launch their Satellites.

On July 25th 2018 Team SKI created record by launching it’s NSLV 3 and entered into
ASIA BOOK OF RECORDS as the “First ever Thermal printing in Near Space” The
payload carried a thermal printer which printed the autobiography of former
president Dr.A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and the Honourable Chief Minister of Rajasthan Mrs.
Vasundhra Raje then.

On 25th Aug 2018 “SKI – NSLV- 6” – the giant balloon, two times the size of the
Empire State building, from NASA’s Columbia facility soared the sky with SKI’s 500 gm
payload designed by its highly talented “Junior team aged between 10 years -
15years. This balloon travelled “near space” below the Karman line where outer
space begins. This was the children’s 1st step towards economically experimenting
and pushing their scientific imagination. It was part of SKI’s 1st launch as Dr.
Srimathy, Ambassador to the CiS program, USA. Recently Team SKI collaborated with
the world’s first women’s college “Periyar Maniammai Institute of Technology” and
created a record on the occasion of the centenary celebrations of their college and
got registered in ASIA BOOK OF RECORDS as “All women team to launch a high
altitude balloon satellite” on 21st April 2019.

7.

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