There are only fewer women who run big corporations in this male dominated world. Women clutch only around a fifth of seats in national parliaments in the world, and statistics say that the gender gap at work will not end for another 81 years. It’s tough to be positive and buoyant, but transformation is happening, and not only in the predictable corridors of power. In fact, the temperament of authority in itself is changing, becoming less top-down, less institutional and less conventional.
You might not be aware of these exceptionally inspiring women involved with developing the world with their extreme passion and determination. From a sports woman to a chief executive officer of an international brand, from scientists to international film director, these women are challenging what is likely of their gender and altering the world around them for the superior. Below, we share their ideologies and thoughts on how to turn equality into reality.
Indra Nooyi, CEO, Pepsico:
Nooyi joined PepsiCo in 1994 and was named president and CFO in 2001. Nooyi has directed the company’s global strategy for more than a decade. In 2006 she became the fifth CEO in PepsiCo’s 44-year history. Since she started as CFO in 2001, the company’s annual net profit has risen from $2.7 billion to $6.5 billion. She really did prove that Indian women are no less.
In July 2014, Indra Nooyi, chairman and chief executive officer of PepsiCo, made headings while responding an issue on work-life balance. The matter had already stirred up a high-decibel discussion with Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg inquiring women to not miscalculate and undervalue themselves or slash back on aspiration and dreams out of panic of work-life balance.. To this powerful debate, Nooyi added her sincere and honest views. “I don’t think women can have it all….Everyday, you are going to make a decision about whether you are going to be a wife or a mother….the biological clock and the career clock are in total conflict with each other. Total, complete conflict. When you have to have kids you have to build your career…just as you’re rising to middle management your kids need you because they’re teenagers…” For Nooyi at 59, with two mature daughters, routing a $66.4-billion realm, and making a pay packet of more than $18 million in 2013, it would have been not so difficult to give an accurate answer. This is what makes Nooyi extraordinary. On one hand, she is one of the most influential women in the world handling the mega multinational and yet, she is stranded enough to be capable to associate with bigger and well-concerned issues like obesity and work-life-balance. Not unexpectedly, in the GIW study, Nooyi heads at the top in the bunch of global Indian women by an enormous margin.
So what makes her stand out of the lot in the web babble around Nooyi? Roughly, three things: How she manages Pepsi as an organization, bracing and leading; how she has beaconed Pepsi towards a better and improved collection of products; and, three, her colossal emotional plea.
Sania Mirza, Tennis Player:
Who do not know about the number one woman tennis player of the world? She was born in aamchi Mumbai to a mediocre business family. At a very young age she proved that tennis was her only interest. She was six when she started playing tennis, and at the initial stages of her career she was coached by her father and Roger Anderson. With her constant passion of doing the best, she has established herself as the best tennis player from the country ever.
She has accomplished a number of firsts for her own country like winning a Pro-Level tittle, qualifying for the WTA finals among many others. She has won several gold and silver medals at the Asian games, Afro-Asian games and the Commonwealth games.
She has always made headlines in the popular and noted magazines of the country. In 2005, she was counted among one of the 50 heroes of Asia by Times Magazine and later in the year 2010, she was named one among the 33 women of India who made all proud by The Economic Times Magazine.
She broke all the stereotypes and married the Pakistani cricket player, Shoaib Malik. She has won many awards for her excellent performances which include, Arjuna Award, Padma Shri, and Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna etc.
Mira Nair, Filmmaker:
She is certainly a woman of substance. She was the one who brought the Indian culture to a global platform. Her production company, Mirabai Films, focuses in films for international spectators on Indian society, whether in the fiscal, societal or cultural spheres.
“I was living in an apartment at Marine Lines and I spent almost all my time with the kids. Mira gave me that real-life experience at a time when I was playing these Russian characters on stage whose lives I didn’t know much about. That helped me a lot in my career,” says Khan, one of whose best performances was in another film of Nair’s, The Namesake. Incidentally, Nair declined the break to direct ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ in favor of ‘The Namesake’.
Born to a Punjabi family and raised in the historical city of Bhubaneswar, Nair did her education from Miranda House in Delhi before departing to Harvard University where her interest was offended by documentary filmmaking.“She wants to introduce the Indian culture to a global audience in the right context. She wants to celebrate it,” says Khan.
Nair is married to Ugandan academic Mahmood Mamdani. She is settled in New York and thus has to divide her time between New York City, Delhi and Kampala. She is at present working on taking ‘Monsoon Wedding’ to Broadway. The interesting thing to note here is that Nair also runs the Maisha Film Lab, which guides East African filmmakers on filming and making documentaries. Nair’s last released film, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, may not hold a feather to her cap of best works, but it wouldn’t be an extend to say that she still have a lot of tacit stories to tell.
Priyanka Chopra, Actress, Singer:
She is one of the highest paid actresses in Bollywood and undoubtedly one among the most high-profile celebrities of the country. Be it the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi appealing her to step forward and contribute to the Clean India Campaign, to her rocking Hollywood debut, she is certainly taking over the world.
Priyanka Chopra showed the world that when you have determination and zeal to achieve something, age is just a number. She won the Miss World Pageant in 2000 when she was just 17 years old. She then never looked back. She is always grounded no matter what she achieves in life and this is what makes her stand out of the crowd.
Ms Chopra has established herself in the Bollywood industry with her fine art of acting and entertainment. She has won a number of awards and critical acclaim for her projects like, Aitraaz, Fashion, Barfi, Mary Kom and many others. She debuted in the singing industry with ‘In My City’ in 2012 and soon released her second single ‘Exotic’ in 2013. She was the first ever Indian actress to work with international singing stars like Pitbull.
In 2015, she embarks on starring as Alex Parrish on the ABC drama Quantico, fetching the title of the first South Asian woman to banner an American network series. That’s not it. She leaves no opportunity to make every Indian Proud on her. Later in the year 2016, she was announced as one of the presenters at the 88th Academy Awards. Before her fans could have ended its celebration, she tweeted about it being official that she will be seen playing a role of a villain in the upcoming Hollywood movie Baywatch which is based on the 1990s TV series of the same name. She will star against ‘The Rock’ Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron. Apart from them, Alexandra Daddario, Hannibal Buress, Kelly Rohrbach, Ilfenesh Hadera and John Bass will be seen in pivotal roles.
This girl is undoubtedly on a roll!
Bhakti Sharma, Open Water Swimmer:
Born in Mumbai and brought up in the blue city of Rajasthan ‘Udaipur’, she is the youngest open water swimmer. Sharma is the first Asian woman and the youngest in the world to make a record in open swimming in the Antarctic waters.
She swam 2.3 km in 41.14 minutes, at a temperature of 1 °C. By doing this she broke the record of Lynne Cox(USA) and Lewis Pugh(Great Britain). Bhakti Sharma has swum in all the five oceans of the world, in addition to swimming in eight other seas and channels. She has won a number of awards for her marvelous performance including ‘Tenzing Norgav National Adventure Awards’ in 2010. Sharma, 26, swam the very noted English Channel in just 13 hours and 55 minutes. Did we tell you she was just 16 when she did that? Apart from this, she has crossed many other channels and seas including, The Gulf of Mexico, The Arctic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea etc.
