MAGNIFICENT MARY Growing up in a conservative culture, MC Mary Kom has struggled her way out of orthodoxy and into the world of boxing. She first stepped into the boxing wing to earn bread and butter for the family, but it soon turned into a passion. Being a quick learner, she took a mere two weeks to learn the basics of boxing. To put her accomplishments into perspective: Mary Kom is a five-time world champion in amateur boxing, and the first-ever woman to receive the Arjuna award – conferred by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India – in the year 2003. Mary Kom st
LADY OF NUMBERS Chua Sock Koong is a typical case of luck favours the prepared! A trained accountant, Sock Koong started her career with the Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) as a treasurer and worked her way up to become the CFO and then the Group Chief Executive Officer, thus being one of a few women in the world to head a communications company. The phenomenal rise in her career graph is worth inspiration. SingTel, Asia’s leading communications group, is the largest listed company on the Singapore Exchange by market capitalisation. SingTel connects 550 million mobile users a
HUMBLE AND POWERFUL As the founder of HTC and VIA Technologies, Cher Wang has an extensive knowledge in the field of Technology. Created in 1997 and based in Taiwan, HTC is a Taiwanese multinational manufacturer of smartphones and tablets. Cher Wang is considered to be the most powerful woman in technology and wireless segment. Cher started her career with hawking motherboards in 1982 for First International Computer, which was co-founded by her sister Charlene. The year 1987 saw the advent of VIA Technologies, an integrated chipset maker and was co-founded by her husband Wen-in-Chen. HTC cam
CHASING EXCELLENCE Aruna Jayanthi, the CEO of Capgemini India believes that there are no glass ceilings for people working in the IT sector of our country; it’s a mere myth. The IT department is growing so fast that there is no room for such inhibitions today. She believes in the fundamental principle of men and women bringing different strengths to the table. Aruna, leading one of the largest business units of the Capgemini group, is a woman of broader pictures, and thinks that it all depends on an individual and not on the industry. A Pioneer in the IT industry, Aruna has worked with both
THE GIFTED MIND When the H5N1 virus made a dramatic appearance in Hong Kong in 1997 in humans, Dr. Margaret Chan was at the helm of the affair. Such a leap by a viral strain was never seen before. The bird flu outbreak took several lives and seemed difficult to contain. But the manner in which Dr. Chan handled the whole event shot her into the limelight, and in due course of time she was appointed as the Director General of the World Health Organization. The lady had exhibited commendable intellect and diligence while battling against world’s worst epidemic that was capable of wiping out the
STAR OF TASTY PUFFS Best known for her fragrance and tobacco-flavouring business, Huabao International Holdings, Chu Lam Yiu is continually lauded as one of the cost-creative young minds in the industry. Having founded her company in 1996 with an aim to educate more and more people towards tobacco flavouring, Chu Lam Yiu has turned Huabao into a flagship brand. According to the Annual Report of Huabao International, the company maintains its development a strategy of tobacco-flavourings, accelerating development of food flavourings and exploring daily-use household cleaner fragrances as its c
THE DYNAMIC PERFORMER When Geetanjali Kirloskar got married to the grandson of S L Kirloskar, the founder of Kirloskar Group, she knew that she had walked into a free world where she would get the liberty to fulfill her desire to be a business woman. Thereon, she went to weave a tale of success and has several titles to her disposal. She has been involved with Pratibha, an advertising agency of the Kirloskar Group; Lintertainment, which focused on marketing and promotion of Hindi movies; Life’s Like That, a TV show on Times Now; and Quadrant, a joint venture with the IPG Worldwide Group Quad
FEARLESS CHILD As stated by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, she is “a brave and gentle advocate of peace who through the simple act of going to school became a global teacher.” At the age of 15, she was shot in the head; however, being born with a strong will power she survived the attack. In today’s world, most of our children make excuses to skip school for at least a day. However, in an educationally unrest country like Pakistan there is a girl, Malala Yousafzai, who wants education for every child born on the planet. She is a young and fearless 18-year-old soul who advocates f
A BEACON OF DEMOCRACY Having been born to a revolutionary father Aung San, who laid the foundation of the modern Burmese army, Aung San Suu Kyi had patriotism running through her veins. She spent majority of her childhood with her mother Khin Kyi, who was appointed a Burmese ambassador to India and Nepal in 1960. Suu Kyi’s stay with her mother helped in shaping her political and religious views, and as a result she grew up to become a fireball - full of enthusiasm and passion, and a woman of substance. However, it was her motherland where Suu Kyi essayed her success story that got penned dow
THE LION HEARTED We live in a perfect world and still crib about it almost every day, whereas there is another world which is dark, depressing and divulges the bitter truth of our modern-day society. We keep hearing a lot of stories on acid attacks, we empathize with them for some time and then forget, but how many of us actually walk down the road with them to see how they survive such sickening inhuman acts? Not many of us even bother following up on that story the next day, but there is a woman who takes every dark road heading towards the not-so-mainstream culture, and brings out the same