Forbes' most powerful women: FM Sitharaman in top 40, Nayar makes debut

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has made it to the list of the world’s 100 most powerful women by Forbes, for the third year in a row. Her ranking in 2021 rose to 37 —  two spots ahead of her American counterpart Janet Yellen —from 41 a year ago. 

Falguni Nayar, founder and CEO, Nykaa, was listed at the 88th spot. She recently became India's seventh woman billionaire and the wealthiest self-made billionaire following her company's stellar debut in the stock market.

Other Indian businesswomen in the rankings were Roshini Nadar (52), chairperson of HCL Technologies and the first woman to lead a listed IT company in India, and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (72), executive chairperson and founder of Biocon.

MacKenzie Scott tops this year’s ranking, replacing the outgoing German chancellor Angela Merkel, who ranked first for 15 of the prior 17 iterations of this list. Scott has given away $8.6 billion of her fortune in charity, including $2.7 billion this year alone. 

List includes 40 CEOs, most since 2015, who oversee a record $3.3 trillion in revenue