Annesa D' Souza, CFO
The accounting and finance industry is evolving. With the business environments becoming more and more complex, Role of CFO is also becoming very critical to the success of the enterprise. With a good CEO-CFO combo an enterprise can create unthinkable value for shareholders. Traditionally, being viewed as a financial boss, the role of the CFO has expanded manifold and evolved to be a strategic partner and advisor to the CEO, supporting in strategic and operational decision making of the company. With the ability to maintain responsible investments and stewardship as a part of their traditional role expectations, the CFOs today are also expected to remain up-to-date on the latest advancements in technology. Indian firms have geared up to efficiently manage their spending & investment with a keen eye on the future, and the CFOs are quite optimistic about the economy, the outlook for their companies. Several executives who don the cape of a CFO have brought about mammoth change to their belonging organization. This story is about one such CFO.
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Top 10 Women CFOs - 2021
With the evolution of advanced technologies such as bigdata and AI, the role of CFOs has undergone a paradigm shift over the last few decades. They have gone a long way from the historical tasks of the finance function such as books and records, financial reporting, and statutory compliance. The CFO's duties include tracking cash flow and financial planning as well as analyzing the company's financial strengths and weaknesses and proposing corrective actions. CFO is a member of C-suite and is the third highest position in a company. CFOs have significant input in company's investments, capital structure, and managing company's income and expenses. Also they assist the CEO with forecasting, cost benefit analysis, and obtaining funding for various initiatives. But still with all fast evolving changes around the world, the gender disparity remains unchanged for the C-suite positions in the companies despite small variations in statistics.
The number women being employed in financial and insurance companies have widely increased. However, the general pattern of women's employment in this sector has shown that there has been a sort of persistent invisible glass ceiling against women acquiring the top management positions. Even though the statistics are very low when compared to number of women employees in the sector there have been some shining examples, who have reached the top positions in India. Corporate India also lags the rest of its Western and Asian peers by a wide margin when it comes to the presence of women on their boards. Only 17.3 percent of companies have women on key decision making bodies. But the changes are on its way as the female representation on boards of large Indian companies has increased by 5.9 percentage points from 11.4 percent in 2015 to 17.3 percent in 2021.
More and more women being employed in the finance and banking sectors gives us hope of a more equal corporate boardroom. In this issue of CEO Insights magazine, we introduce you a list of 'TOP 10 WOMEN CFOs - 2021 who have contributed to the economic development of the country. The following list has been crafted by a team of CEOs, VCs and CEO Insights magazine editorial board, thus delivering inspiring stories of their journey and the contributions & roles played by them in the creation and empowerment of a powerful nation.
Our subscribers play a decisive role in finalization of our annual list of "Top 10 Women CFOs - 2021" by nominating those which have served them with excellence and are praiseworthy. If you feel there is a company that deserves to be on our annual list, do write to us about them mentioning their value proposition.
| Company Logo | Company Management | Company Name | Company Description |
|---|---|---|---|
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Annesa Dsouza,CFO | Venus Wire Industries | Annesa has 26+ years with FMCG, Travel & Tourism, Hospitality, Cement, Pharma Engineering, R&D & LLPs sectors and contributes to business development of the company |
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Bhupinder Kaur, CFO | Paul Merchants | Bhupinder an ingenious leader in Financial Reporting, Planning, Analysis, Tax Implications helps in the finance planning for the company |
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Dhivya Suryadevara,CFO | General Motors | Dhivya has topnotch experience in Corporate Financial Planning & Analysis, Investor Relations with achievements in international platforms |
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Kavita Choubisa Ojha, Group CFO | Pradeep Metals | Challenging assignments in her early career days helped Kavita to build a strong foundation which also gave her the confidence to step out and lead a team of experienced people |
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Mahalakshmi Radhakrushnun,CFO | Invento Robotics | Expertized in Electronics Engineering, Operations, Accounting & Human Resource with six plus years' experience in management for IT and social networking |
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Rupa Vora,Group Director & CFO | IDFC Alternatives | Rupa has three decades of experience in Finance with Women Leadership Excellence Award by IPE - BFSI to his name & excellent success in private equity & banking |
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Sandhya Sharma,CFO | Schindler India | A motivator for women leadership and contributing to the development in team management, MIS & business strategy |
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Shallu Arora,CFO | Sirca Paints | Having more than seven years of experience, Shallu has emerged as one of the most promising young CFOs in the countryYear) |
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Shradha Kapoor,CFO | HDFC Life Insurance | With skills in management, sales & business development, Shradha has leadership traits for business in finance & banking |
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Khyati Maheshwari,CFO | Wella Company | Khyati possess a remarkable financial insight along with an analytical, agile & innovative mind that is placing her at an unparalleled position in the finance world |
