40 Successful Women Entrepreneurs in India: Every woman entrepreneur has its own journey of struggle and success. We will discuss the 40 women entrepreneurs here in terms of their start up and success stories. Be with us till the end point of this article.
Table of Contents
- List of Women Entrepreneurs in India
- Top Women Entrepreneurs in India
- Successful Women Entrepreneurs in India
- 21. Basudha Srivastava
- 22. Dr Florida Tilton
- 23. Mehak Sagar
- 24. Naiyya Saggi
- 25. Priyanshi Choubey
- 26. Richa Singh
- 27. Sairee Chahal
- 28. Shahnaz Husain
- 29. Sanna Vohra
- 30. Neha Motwani
- 31. Chitra Gurnani Daga
- 32. Divya Gokulnath
- 33. Farah Nathani Menzies
- 34. Isha Chaudhary
- 35. Jaya Jha
- 36. Malini Agarwal
- 37. Meghna Agarwal
- 38. Shubhra Chadda
- 39. Suchi Mukherjee
- 40. Simran Bhatia
- Role of Women Entrepreneurs in India
- Problems Faced by Women Entrepreneurs in India
- Growth of Women Entrepreneurs in India
- Conclusion
- Faq on Successful Women Entrepreneurs in India
List of Women Entrepreneurs in India
1. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw
As we discussed in the introductory part as an example, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is a business tycoon and a successful women entrepreneurs in india. She was born in Bangalore. She graduated from the Mount Carmel College of Bangalore University and got her specialisation in zoology. After her graduation, she moved to Melbourne University and completed her post graduate degree.
Kiran started her career as a trainee in Carlton and United breweries and after that she worked in an Australian company Barrett Brothers and Burston. She got real experience as a professional worker and in 1978 she returned to India and started her own company named Biocon.
Shah is the founder and CMD of Biocon Ltd. this company is the biggest name in the field of bio pharmaceutical and it does export to almost 85 foreign countries. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw was awarded Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan for her successful work. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw runs the Biocon Foundation, which helps poor people in fighting against cancer. This foundation provides a free cure to cancer patients.
2. Vibha Padalkar
Vibha Padalkar is successful women entrepreneurs in india also has been appointed as the MD and CEO of the insurance company HDFC life on 12 September 2018 for three years. She was eligible to become a member of a chartered accountant’s institution in England and Wales in 1992. Vibha Patankar is also a member of an Indian chartered accountant‘s institution.
She was awarded as “CFO- lady of the year” in 2011 for her great performance in the business field. She is a successful woman entrepreneur of India who runs her company expertly by working very well in the post of CEO.
3. Indra Nooyi
Indra Nooyi is the CFO and president of PepsiCo. She is a well-known and successful women entrepreneurs in india. Indra Nooyi was born in Chennai and she graduated from Madras Christian College of Science Specialisation. She started her career as a product manager at Johnson and Johnson Co. and Textile Co. Mettur Beardsell.
She was awarded Padma Bhushan by the Indian government for her contribution in the field of industrialization and business.
4. Indu Jain
Indu Jain belongs to Uttar Pradesh and she is 75 years old but her enthusiasm doesn’t let her down when it comes to being a woman entrepreneur. She is the chairperson of India’s biggest media company India Bennett ’s Coleman and Company Ltd. The additional success of Indu Jain is that she belongs to the family of Sahu Jain who is the owner of Jain Times of India and other big media industries.
Indu Jain has a strong religious belief and that is why she works for Jain religion. She writes columns related to religion and also she works for women welfare. Indu Jain is a successful woman Entrepreneur and she was awarded Padma Bhushan in 2016 by the government of India.
5. Arundhati Bhattacharya
Arundhati Bhattacharya has many records in the name of Arundhati Bhattacharya. She set the record for the first woman to achieve the post of chief in the State bank of India for seven years. She is also the first Indian woman to record her name on the list of fortunes.
In 1977, Arundhati Bhattacharya had joined SBI as probationary officer. She has worked in various banks during her 36 year career. She has also worked at the State Bank of India, a branch in New York, and she has been the managing director of SBI capital markets.
No doubt Arundhati Bhattacharya is a successful women entrepreneurs in india and she has been listed among the 30 most powerful women in Forbes in 2015.
6. Ekta Kapoor
Ekta Kapoor is the most popular personality in India and she is recognized as the director and producer in Bollywood industry and she has her own production company named Balaji telefilms. Apart from this, Ekta Kapoor is a successful business enter Premier who has made her place in the hearts of Indian people due to her work in Bollywood industry.
Ekta Kapoor has a background of great personalities in India as her father was a superstar in his time. Her brother is also a well-known actor in the Bollywood industry.
Ekta Kapoor has given various web series and serials under the banner of Balaji telefilms. She is listed among the successful women entrepreneurs in india. Ekta Kapoor has not only given web series and cereals but also she has directed and produced movies.
7. Vandana Luthra
Vandana Luthra is the founder of VLCC healthcare Limited. This company is a big name in the field of beauty and wellness. Vandana Luthra was born in Kolkata, West Bengal. She started the journey of her career in 1989 when she had two daughters.
Her company VLCC is now settled in 11 foreign countries and this has made Vandana Luthra a great and successful woman entrepreneur.
Vandana Luthra completed her polytechnic studies at Delhi University and later enrolled herself in the institutes of Germany, UK and France to gain expertise in the field of beauty, fitness, nutrition and skincare. She was awarded Padma Shri in 2015 and listed as the 33rd most successful women entrepreneurs in india.
8. Naina Lal Kidwai
Naina Lal Kidwai is a chartered accountant and she is the chief personality of HSBC bank in India. Naina Lal Kidwai graduated from Delhi University in economics and then she went to Harvard business school and completed her MBA. Nana is the first Indian woman to study at Howard Business School in India.
She has also been the chairperson of FICCI in recent times. She is the first Indian woman who has worked for foreign banks and ran the strategies of the foreign banks successfully. She has worked in various banks on good posts.
Naina Lal Kidwai was awarded Padma Shri in 2007 for her great contribution in the business field.
9. Neelam Dhawan
Neelam Dhawan is the biggest inspiration not just for our women but also for our society. She has proven that women are also capable of working professionally and running the business successfully. Neelam Dhawan was rejected by asian paints and Hindustan Unilever because she was a lady.
The staff of the company believed that a woman is not suitable for market facing roles and she cannot give a good contribution to the company. But this was not the end for Neelam because she proved that she is capable enough to face the challenges.
Neelam Dhawan was the former country managing director of the IT company Hewlett-Packard for India. She joined the Hewlett-Packard company in 2008. She has great work experience with professional skills in other big companies like Microsoft India, HCL and IBM. She has worked as a managing director at Microsoft India.
Neelam got her graduation done from Saint Stephens College in economics and she completed her MBA from the Faculty of Management Studies.
Neelam was listed among the most effective women entrepreneurs by the magazine Patrika in 2009 and she got 37th rank out of 50.
10. Chanda Kochhar
Chanda Kochhar was born in Rajasthan and she is the MD and CEO of ICICI Bank. Chanda received her Masters degree from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai in management course. She was a bright student and was honoured with the Wockhardt Gold Medal for her good performance in management studies and J.N. Bose gold medal for cost accountancy.
Chandana Kochhar was married to a successful entrepreneur named Deepak Kochhar who is the owner of Wind Energy Entrepreneur. Chanda Kochhar showed a great lead to ICICI bank and the bank was awarded as the “best Khudara bank of India” in 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2005.
Top Women Entrepreneurs in India
11. Aditi Gupta
Aditi Gupta is a multi-talented successful women entrepreneurs in india, who is the co-founder of the comic Menstrupedia. She’s also a well-known author and a social activist who is working for the welfare of the girls.
Aditi Gupta is working for the menstrual health of a girl and she has a target to remove all the myths surrounding us in terms of mensuration. She and her husband co-founded the comic Menstrupedia in 2012 and since then she is working as an expert lady in the field of entrepreneurship
Aditi Gupta was listed in Forbes India among 30 powerful Indian women for her great contribution in breaking the stereotypes.
12. Ashwini Ashokana
Ashwini Ashokana and her husband Anand Chandrasekaran co-founded a cloud-based platform Mad Street Den. Ashwini is a great inspiration for our society because she has proved that women can also think technically and they can move in the technical aspect as well as a man does.
Thus she has broken the stereotype that a woman is only emotional not technical and has shown the world that a woman can be as logical as a man.
She owns more than a decade’s worth of experience in Silicon Valley. She has experience leading the mobile innovation team at Intel’s interaction and experience in the research lab in Silicon Valley
Ashwini is a trained classical dancer who has been featured in Fortunes 40 under 40 list.
13. Priya Paul
Priya Paul is a successful women entrepreneurs in india who runs her umpire expertly. She is the chairperson of Apeejay Surrendra Park hotel. Priya started her career after finishing her studies at Wellesley College, U.S., where she worked as a marketer under her father’s supervision.
Priya Paul has been considered the most influential woman and she was awarded Padma Shri by Pratibha Singh Patil for her great contribution to the society and industrial world.
14. Ritu Kumar
Ritu Kumar started her career in Kolkata and she is one of the most popular Indian fashion designers. Ritu Kumar is considered the most innovative designer. She had started her career journey from a basic and small point but took it to a higher point with her capabilities.
Ritu Kumar used to make bridal wear and evening clothes in the starting journey of her career but after she evolved her expertise, she entered an international market.
Ritu Kumar completed her schooling at the Loreto convent and completed her higher degree from Lady Irwin College. She was also awarded a scholarship to Briarcliffe College in New York, where she pursued art history.
She was awarded Padma Shri by the government of India in 2013.
15. Falguni Nayar
Falguni Nayar is the founder of Naykaa. Falguni always had a dream to start a business but before entering the world, she worked 20 years as an investment banker with Kotak Mahindra to get professional skills and expertise. After this, she left her job and started her own dream project in 2012 and she gave her company the name as “Naykaa”.
No doubt, Falguni Nayar is one of the most influential women because she is running her business so perfectly. Naykaa is a popular online portal among the Indian ladies to buy online cosmetic and wellness products.
Her company offers more than 850 brands and she also has physical stores apart from the online portal. She has 35 physical stores running offline around the world.
Falguni Nayar has a journey of her achievement and in 2017 she was titled as the “most powerful business” by “Business Today.” . She also received the woman ahead award at the Economic Times due to her great contribution to the beauty and wellness industry.
Naykaa is one of the top online websites to provide beauty brands and wellness products. It has a great turn over due to her brand’s availability in the store. Also, since 2014, the company has been a partner with Femina. This shows the efforts of Falguni Nayar which she has put in with her hard work. This makes her one of the most powerful women entrepreneurs of India.
We can see that today’s era has successfully evolved and is giving the best opportunities to our women in terms of business and start-ups. It is good to see that women are taking advantage of the opportunities and proving themselves that they are capable enough to bear any task.
16. Vani Kola
Vani Kola has a long journey of establishing her successful empire. She is well in terms of her support for the e-commerce sector in India. Vani Kola is the founder and managing director of Kalaari capital. She spent 22 years in Silicon Valley and founded two companies named Righwrok and Certus software.
Vani Kola is a venture capitalist in the Kalaari capital. She has an early investment record in Flipkart and Myntra. She has also been linked to startups like Snapdeal, Dream 11 and Urban Ladder.
Apart from her business career, Vani Kola has a powerful impact as a Lady. She was awarded the NDTV Women in Worth Award for Entrepreneurship and TiE Delhi NCR 5th Edition of Women’s Entrepreneurship Summit Award. Wani was listed as one of the most powerful women in Indian business by Fortune India.
17. Upasana Taku
Upasana Taku is the co-founder of MobiKwik. She has a record of owning the first mobile wallet of India. MobiKwik is a virtual wallet that has its tie-up with other big companies. This app allows people to recharge and pay the amount online the same as one does in an offline mode.
Upasana has a Masters degree in management science from Stanford University. She has worked as a senior product manager at PayPal.
Upasana although had a much desired place in her career as she was working in a well-known multinational company on the post of a product manager yet she was not satisfied. Once in her interview she mentioned that even working with such great budgets she never felt fulfilled.
She returned to India and worked with founder Bipin Preet Singh as a helper for six months. After she realized that she had enough confidence, she joined MobiKwik full time as a co-founder.
18. Tanvi Malik
Tanvi Malik is a popular name in the fashion world and she started her career journey in the fashion e-commerce business in India with ventures like Fab Alley and Indya. It started with her childhood friend Shivani Poddar. Tanvi had a dream to provide trendy fashion collection to Indian people in a budget friendly amount and that’s what she has worked hard for.
Her fashion forward Western wear brands are taken hand to hand by people. Tanvi Malik founded Fab Alley and Indya in 2012. She has her graduation in economics from Delhi’s Lady Shriram College and MBA in brand management from MICA Ahmedabad.
Before starting her dream project, Tanvi worked for Titan and did branding for high-end designer watches.
19. Suchita Salwan
Suchita Salwan founded Little Black Book, which has over 1 million daily users and it is a large online directory of local business in today’s time. She shares her experience of starting her dream career as she was so dull with listening to Delhi being called as a boring city.
Suchita graduated from Hindu College of BA Honours with a specialization in economics. Suchita is one of the most important women entrepreneurs today as she is successfully running Little Black Book that helps her customers in finding the local brands. It also includes lifestyle, food, travel and other niches. Suchita holds experience as a creative assistant with Wizcraft International Entertainment Private Limited.
20. Khushboo Jain
Khushbu Jain is running her entrepreneurial empire to help India’s crowdfunding start-up genre. Khushboo graduated from Sydenham College Mumbai in business management and then got her Masters degree from Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research in MBA marketing.
She is working as the CEO of the company and she handles the leads of marketing arm, communication and design teams. Apart from business studies, Khushboo studied fashion marketing at the London College of fashion and at Parsons.
Khushbu Jain has been listed among the top 15 winning women entrepreneurs at the 2019 Women Transforming India Awards Neeti Yoga and United Nations.
Successful Women Entrepreneurs in India
21. Basudha Srivastava
Basudha Srivastava co-founded a travel agency in 2015 named ExpressEarth digital services which provides all types of facilities in terms of travel needs. She co-founded the company with her husband Himanshu Narula, who was also her schoolmate. They both were keenly interested in a start up related to travel and that is why they left their job and started working on their dream project.
ExpressEarth Digital Services is a platform which provides all facilities related to travel like hotels, cars, flight, insurance and more to ease travel needs.
Basudha Srivastava graduated from Delhi University and she has worked in the IT sector. She was awarded the most innovative travel management company by India Travel Awards North.
22. Dr Florida Tilton
Dr Florida Tilton is one of the most successful women entrepreneurs in india who has chosen her career in Science. She has her post-graduation in Plant Biology and Masters of Philosophy in Plant Genetics from the University of Madras Manisha Raisinghani. She was awarded the All India Women Entrepreneurship Award 2018 by the Delhi Management Association.
Biozone is a research agency that performs research, analytical academic and publishing services and creates herbal products. Dr Florida got the idea to start Biozone research training technology after leaving her job when two students approached her for coaching. In today’s time, she is one of the most successful women entrepreneurs in India.
23. Mehak Sagar
Mehak Sagar co-founded Wed Me Good in 2014 and got the support of her husband Anand Shahani. She did her masters in economics. We’d Me Good is a platform that takes care of all types of wedding accessories and facilities. This is the largest wedding portal in India which helps every groom and bride to find the suitable revenue and wedding plan for the memorable moment.
This platform has everything from bottom to top like they provide Mehendi artists and photographers to get candid done.
Mehak has shown her great effort in running such a big platform which fulfills all wedding facilities and she says that the hard that they put into things is truly what sets them apart.
24. Naiyya Saggi
BabyChakra is a platform which provides healthcare tips and maternity facilities. Naiyya Saggi is the CEO and founder of BabyChakra and she got the idea of building up her career in healthcare because she was passionate about this.
Naiyya Saggi graduated from Harvard Business School and received BALLB honours from the National Law school of India. She runs a platform that provides all maternity health care facilities. BabyChakra is a popular parenting app in India. Apart from her career in the healthcare sector, she has experience as a management consultant at McKinsey and company at the Bridgespan group, Boston.
25. Priyanshi Choubey
Priyanshi Choubey did her management course from the Indian Institute in India and she worked as a business analyst at Aspricot. She is the co-founder of Instacar, which makes people go for easy car rental facilities. Instacar is a market place for outstation taxis and cars. Priyanshi Choubey was awarded prestigious awards like the “Women Entrepreneur of the Year” in Travel and Hospitality by SheSparks in 2018.
Instacar is a platform that we see as a taxi rental platform. It provides the facilities to hail intercity taxi reservations by the users. Priyanshi Chaubey has successfully run her empire and she always focuses on the quality, reliability and safety of the users and provides such facilities which guarantee the same.
26. Richa Singh
Richa Singh co-founded the online portal YourDost to provide free counselling facilities to students and people. It is totally a mental health service platform which is bringing change into people’s lives and giving them the spark to live positive.
Richa Singh graduated from the Indian Institute of technology and during her graduation she was shocked with the news of her fellow IIT student who committed suicide because he was worried about the grades.
This made Richa think about something that could help people and then she got the solution and founded the online portal YourDost. This portal provides counselling services to the people who seek help and guidance in their lives.
27. Sairee Chahal
SHEROES.in is a platform that offers support, guidance, resources, opportunities and empowerment to women. This is a platform that is pushing women’s empowerment too high. Sairee Chahal is the founder of Sheroes.in who is also a great Women entrepreneur of India. She is also the co-founder of FlexiMom’s and Newslink. She is a TED speaker and she was voted the most powerful woman in Indian business in 2012.
She has a great record of achievement in her life. She was awarded the Devi award, the Femina achievers award, editor’s choice for the L’Oréal Femina Women’s Award, Cartier Award, Business Today and the Most Powerful Women in Indian Business. Sairee was listed among 100 influencers on 53 rank by Onalytica’s “Future of Work Top 100 Influencers” list.
28. Shahnaz Husain
Shahnaz Husain is a worldwide popular name in the fashion and beauty industry and she is actually a beauty icon. Shahnaz is known as the Queen of herbal beauty care. She belongs to the city of Nawabs, Lucknow and she got her studies done from La Martiniere Lucknow.
After this, Shehnaz got the specialization in cosmetology and psychology. The life of Shahnaz Husain has not been easy as she was married at an early age and this led to her becoming a mother at a young age. She received her specialization along with her duties as a mother and daughter-in-law. She started a saloon in 1997 at her house in Delhi and her father was able to afford the investment of 37,000 rupees.
Shahnaz had started working on Ayurvedic herbal cosmetics and today she has a popular name in its field. In 2006, she was awarded Padma Shri by the government of India.
She has also been awarded the National Entrepreneurship India Award 2015 for outstanding Ayurvedic innovations from Entrepreneur Media India, FICCI, NEN, NASSCOM, the National Women’s Super Achievers Award in Mumbai, sponsored by Femina and many more. She has a business empire in over 138 countries.
29. Sanna Vohra
Wedding brigade is a platform which provides all facilities in terms of wedding. This platform has all necessary wedding things and it helps the users even in finding the best wedding plans throughout the wedding. Users may get the best services of verified vendors through the wedding brigade.
Sanna Vohra is the founder and CEO of the wedding brigade. She graduated from Brown University and started her dream project. Sanna Vohra is one of the Indian women entrepreneurs who founded her dream project during her graduation and she is listed as one of the under 30 most influential women by Forbes.
30. Neha Motwani
Neha Motwani has always been very passionate about fitness and health care and thus she thought to build an empire on the same. Neha Motwani is the co-founder and CEO of Fitternity and she is one of the top women entrepreneurs in India who established such a big fitness community.
Although Neha has always been very passionate about fitness, she was not sure where to start. Thus she got an idea to start a platform which could help the people in finding and locating the gyms easily.
Neha Motwani has a masters degree in business administration. She has experience of working as a risk advisory analyst at Axis risk consultancy and as a talent and organisational consultant at Aon Hewitt.
31. Chitra Gurnani Daga
Chitra Gurnani Daga has always been very passionate about entrepreneurship and she co-founded Thrillophilia with her husband Abhishek Daga. Thrillophilia is a travel related platform that has 3.5 million monthly users. It is one of the largest online platforms where you can find tons of travel experiences.
Chitra has never been from a business background as her family and husband were not a start-up typed yet she decided to make her dreams come true with her husband. Together they worked on their dream project and started Thrillophilia. Today their company is one of the most well-known travel companies in India.
32. Divya Gokulnath
Divya Gokulnath co-founded BYJU with an aim to help students better their learning. After completing her engineering degree from RV College, she started preparing for GRE to continue her studies abroad. This time she joined Byju Raveendran and became a student. After some time she worked as a teacher here and she got married to Raveendran. She and her husband founded BYJU which is known as the best learning platform. It has its offering for competitive exams like JEE, CAT, NEET and IAS.
33. Farah Nathani Menzies
Farah Nathani Menzies co-founded the Mumum Co. with her partner Shreya Lamba. The Mumum Co. is a platform which is based on nutrition and healthy life.
It aims to help people in finding the right and healthy nutrition.
Farah graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton school and College of Arts and Science and she completed her MBA from the Harvard business school.
“The “very, very real” nature of Mumum Co products comes from our conscious effort to feed our kids with 100% natural and nourishing foods to help their little bodies grow better and faster – with no preservatives or additives”
34. Isha Chaudhary
ZoloStays is a startup aiming to help the students in finding accommodation with food. Isha Chaudhary co-founded ZoloStays, which has a baseline to help students. She is also the head of the Human Resource Department and ZoloStays. She is a graduate from Saint Xavier’s College.
“In our sector, the more options we explore in a city, the more amenities we can provide like – bike on rents, cars on rent, gym memberships, etc.”
35. Jaya Jha
Jaya Jha is the founder of Instacart and Pothi. She graduated from IIT Kanpur and she is having a Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing and Strategy. Jaya is one of the top female entrepreneurs in India in today’s scenario. She owns InstaScribe and Pothi.com. These platforms focus on people who are interested in making their own write-ups/e-books or publishing with them.
Apart from being a successful female entrepreneur, Jaya is experienced as an assistant product manager with Google and as an assistant manager at IBM. She founded her empire at Bengaluru in 2008.
36. Malini Agarwal
Malini Agarwal is one of India’s most influential women and she is the founder and the creative director of Miss Malini. Miss Malini entertainment is a platform to provide news about Bollywood, fashion and lifestyle. Due to her amazing work, Malini has been featured in lists such as GQ’s 50 most influential young Indians and fortune India’s 40 under 40.
37. Meghna Agarwal
Meghna Agarwal is the co-founder of in the IndiQube. She completed her MBA in Finance from IMT. She has over 14 years of experience in HR, consulting, commercial, manufacturing and real estate.
Today, Meghna is running IndiQube successfully, which is a chain of co-working spaces that provide entrepreneurs with a better environment to work in.
“During our initial days of entrepreneurship, we realized that real estate was rigid, non-agile, and involved huge Capex. Either we have tech parks on one side or residential apartments on the other side. A dedicated product for MSMEs, startups, and growing companies was totally missing”
38. Shubhra Chadda
Shubhra Chadda is the co-founder of Chumbak, an online platform to access funky accessories and jewellery with an Indian touch. It has a broad variety of products from fashion to face masks. Shubhra runs Chumbak focusing her attention to Indian heritage and she is supposed to be one of the most successful women entrepreneurs in India.
39. Suchi Mukherjee
Limeroad is an online marketplace to find clothing and lifestyle accessories. Suchi Mukherjee is the founder and CEO of Limeroad. This company has a wide range of lifestyles, styling fashion for men and women.
Suchi completed her masters degree in finance from the Economic school in London. She found out about entrepreneurship when she was on maternity leave. She has almost 18 years of experience in top management of leading consumer technology businesses.
Suchi Mukherjee was awarded for being the coolest startup of the year by Business Today, Infocomm woman of the year – Digital Business and Unicorn Start-up Award by NDTV.
40. Simran Bhatia
Simran Bhatia is the founder of Marketpreneur. She had the aim to help and empower women and hence she started Marketpreneur.
“I always had in my mind to do something of my own that in turn will create a difference and thus Marketpreneur where we provide marketing strategies and services to the women entrepreneurs.”- Simran
Role of Women Entrepreneurs in India
There comes millions, billions and trillions of opinions for women in regards to do’s and don’ts. Our society is often seen to restrict women by a particular criteria and there comes a list of bullet points about what a woman should behave and what a woman should not.
Women are the Most discussed part of our society because they are always stuck with two generals of our society, one is stereotype and another is modern.
Some people believe that women are as important as men in our society and this is actually the truth but there are people who still believe that women are the ‘content’ and they should always stay within the boundaries of the house. They think that a woman should only listen but not speak. Although the era has ultimately evolved, there are some opinions like this that are still existing.
Taking a diversion from such opinions if we pay attention to the women, we will find that they are strong and clever enough to bear any task as well as men do. If you have any stereotyped belief in regards to business, you might find that link that no woman is made to run a business. Although you might think so yet this is the biggest false belief of the century, you ever meet, we must say.
Yes, women are capable of entering the field of entrepreneurship and they are really capable to make the strategies of a business.
According to the government of India, “A woman entrepreneur is defined as an enterprise owned and controlled by a woman having a minimum financial interest of 51% of the capital and giving at least 51% of the employment generated in the enterprise to women.”
Definition has been given by the government of India to justify the term woman entrepreneur. Another definition has been given by Frederick Harbinson.
According to him, “Any woman or a group of women which innovates, initiates or adopts an economic activity may be called woman entrepreneurship.”
In simple words, we can say that a woman entrepreneur is someone who organizes the strategy, risk factors and initiates the idea for any business. Research says that almost 1/3 of the entrepreneur kingdoms are run by women and that is delightful in itself.
In Indian perspective where women have always been so pulled down, they are also getting opportunities for better career options. It is really good to see. Women are making a great contribution to industrial fields. There are examples of great women who have successfully emerged as entrepreneurs and they are inspiring the world.
One of them is Oprah Winfrey who is an American entrepreneur, television host and media executive, has shown great inspiration to society and proved that none can defeat us unless we ourselves do. Oprah has a traumatic childhood where she was raped when she was just nine years old. She fought against the challenges and made a pathway to her success. She was awarded the presidential medal of freedom in 2013 for her outstanding work in the field of entertainment and social impact.
Likewise Oprah Winfrey, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, chairperson and managing director of Biocon Ltd, are popular Indian woman entrepreneur. She was awarded the Padma Shri in 1989 and Padma Bhushan in 2005 for her epic contribution to the health and medicine industry. She has participated well in both corporate and civilian aspects and has been awarded, hence in both. Kiran runs a foundation which works for cancer patients and her foundation takes the responsibility of these patients free of cost.
There are other great women entrepreneurs in the world like Paris Hilton, Vandana Luthra, Falguni Nayar, Ritu Kumar etc. thus we can see that women are playing an important role in the field of business and they are emerging perfectly in the field of entrepreneurship.
Problems Faced by Women Entrepreneurs in India
Starting a business is not an easy task because there are so many factors which one has to consider. There comes an idea of inception, strategic planning, funding, risk factor etc and obviously they are not easy to handle without motivation. Being a male dominant society, there is always a clear pathway for men to move forward in the field of business in comparison to a woman because they have to face such problems which can never be linked with the existence of Men.
For example, if a woman ever thinks about starting a business, the very first thing is concerned about what society will think about her? The family members are seen to restrict a woman because they think that the society will justify their woman as a modern and bold personality. A woman has to always convince the people that she is capable enough and she has to prove that she is strong enough to fight the stereotypes and other challenges of the world.
Apart from this, the worst part of our society is that there is a lack of education for girls. People still give preference to boys when it comes to affording the expenses of education. They think that only boys can get good earnings and look after the family members. It is ridiculous to see that this kind of thinking is still existing in our people. The worst part of the same is that this exists even in today’s technical and scientific era.
There are some common challenges which a woman has to face when she thinks about starting a business. We are listing down those points below-
- Doubt on a woman’s capabilities
- Putting them down under men
- Safety concerns
- No education
- Lack of family support
- These are the basic challenges that are seen in a general way.
Growth of Women Entrepreneurs in India
India is becoming one of the fastest growing startup ecosystems worldwide and women play an important role in it. So let’s dive into some statistics. According to the Sixth Economic Census released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, there is total 14% involvement of women out of 58.5 million entrepreneurs in India and this number is increasing day by day. So this is the best time to support our female friends or family members to start something of their own that helps to create their unique identity worldwide.
Conclusion
I hope through this post you will know about women entrepreneurs in India. If you find this article helpful, please share it with your friends over social media. Also, this list is not completed yet, I will update this on a monthly basis and try to cover as many women entrepreneurs I will cover, so if you know any women entrepreneurs and want to be featured in this list just let me know in the comment section.
Faq on Successful Women Entrepreneurs in India
What are the basic problems of women entrepreneurs in india
If you are afraid of problems then startup is not for you but there are some problems specially faced by women entrepreneurs in India.
1. No Support from family members.
2. Finance Problem
3. Not able to handle too much pressure
4. Position Conflicts
5. Roaming Problems
6. Late Night Work
7. Environmental Issues
These are very basic problems but i feel that if we just start supporting our female friends or relatives for startups then this scenario may change soon in India.
Top 10 Women (Female) Entrepreneurs in India
Deciding on the top 10 female entrepreneurs in India is not easy, you have to check many aspects so I am mentioning some of the most popular women entrepreneurs in India.
1. Ritu Kumar, founder of ritukumar.com
2. Sharadha Sharma, Founder of Yourstory.com
3. Aditi Gupta, Cofounder of Menstrupedia
4. Vani Kola – Founder, Kalaari Capital
5. Radhika Ghai Aggarwal – Co-Founder of Shopclues.com
6. Chitra Gurnani Co founder of thrillophilia
7. Divya Gokulnath, Co-founder of Byju’s
8. Falguni Nayar Founder of Nykka
9. Ankita Sheth Founder of Vista Rooms
10. Swati Bhargava Founder of Cashkaro.com
Who is the first woman entrepreneur in india
Kalpana Saroj today, CEO of Kamani Tubes, is the first woman entrepreneur in india.
How to get loans for women entrepreneurs in india
There are different types of loans available for women from government organizations to private. Here is a detailed guide about the different types of loans for women entrepreneurs.
Percentage of Women Entrepreneurs in India
According to the Sixth Economic Census released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, there is total 14% involvement of women out of 58.5 million entrepreneurs in India and this number is increasing day by day.
5 Women Entrepreneurs in India
These are the top 5 female entrepreneurs in India according to me
1. Ritu Kumar, founder of ritukumar.com
2. Sharadha Sharma, Founder of Yourstory.com
3. Aditi Gupta, Cofounder of Menstrupedia
4. Vani Kola – Founder, Kalaari Capital
5. Radhika Ghai Aggarwal – Co-Founder of Shopclues.com
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