ICICI's Chanda Kochar, NSE's Chitra Ramkrishna in Fortune top-50 women leaders

Four Indians in Fortune's list of top-50 women business leaders

Four Indians led by ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar have been listed in Fortune magazine's global list of top-50 women business leaders, while PepsiCo chief Indra Nooyi has been ranked second in a similar list of women executives in the US.

Maria Das Gracas Foster, CEO of Brazilian energy giant Petrobras, tops the list, followed by Turkish conglomerate Sabanci Holding's Guler Sabanci at the second and Australian banking giant Westpac's CEO Gail Kelly at the third.

Kochhar, who has been ranked fourth, is followed by National Stock Exchange chief Chitra Ramkrishna at 17th, Axis Bank's Shikha Sharma at 32nd and HSBC's Naina Lal Kidwai at 42nd place among the Indians in the magazine's global list of 50 most powerful women in business.

Kochhar, managing director and CEO of India's largest private sector bank, has moved up one position from her fifth position on the 2012 list, while NSE's Chitra Ramkrishna entered the list for the first time.

Fortune noted that Chitra Ramkrishna, a newcomer to the International Power 50 list, has made history as the first woman to head a stick exchange in India.

"The National Stock Exchange lifer, who was part of the core five-member team selected by the government to create a screen-based exchange in 1993, has shattered the glass ceiling, making history as the first woman to head an exchange in India," Fortune said.

The board is banking on her twenty years of experience to oversee India's largest exchange – and the seventh largest in the world – with a total listed market capitalisation of some $1 trillion, it added.

A separate list for most powerful business women in the US, also complied by Fortune magazine, which is topped by technology giant IBM's Ginni Rometty, has PepsiCo's Indian-born CEO Nooyi in the second position, DuPont's Ellen Kullman in the third, Lockheed Martin's Marillyn Hewson in the fourth and Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg at the fifth position.

Fortune said the CEO list has been compiled on the basis of four broad criteria – the size and importance of the business in the global economy, the health and direction of the business, the arc of the business leader's career and social and cultural influence of the CEO concerned.