The country’s richest woman Roshni Nadar Malhotra on Friday became the first woman to head a listed Indian IT company as she took over as the Chairperson of USD 8.9 billion HCL Technologies from her father and billionaire Shiv Nadar.
Roshni came on the board of HCL Technologies in 2013 and was Vice Chairperson. She will continue as CEO of HCL Corporation, the holding company for all the group entities.
On Friday, HCL Technologies announced that its founder and chairman Shiv Nadar stepped down from the role and the company’s Board of Directors has appointed his daughter, Roshni, as the new chairperson with immediate effect.
Shiv Nadar, however, would continue to be the Managing Director of the company with designation as Chief Strategy Officer, the company said in a statement.
According to the company website, Shiv Nadar is the chairman of the USD 9.9 billion HCL Corp. HCL Group includes HCL Technologies, HCL Infosystem, and HCL Healthcare.
HCL Technologies CEO C. Vijayakumar said this was part of the company’s succession planning exercise.
Profile
Roshni studied at Vasant Valley School, Delhi and graduated in communication with a focus in radio/TV/film from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. She also pursued MBA from Kellogg School of Management.
She worked with Sky News UK and CNN America as a news producer before joining HCL Corp in 2009, and within a year was made executive director and then CEO at the age of 27.
Roshni married Shikhar Malhotra, Vice Chairman of HCL Healthcare, in 2010 and the couple has two sons — Armaan and Jahaan.
According to the latest Hurun Rich List, she is India’s richest woman with a net worth of ₹36,800 crore. In 2019, she ranked 54th on the Forbes World’s 100 Most Powerful Women list .
She established The Habitats Trust in 2018 that works towards protecting India’s natural habitats and its indigenous species, and has driven transformational efforts in the area of education as a trustee of the Shiv Nadar Foundation.
Industry body Nasscom tweeted a congratulatory message to Roshni. “Congratulations #RoshniNadarMalhotra on your new role as Chief of @hcltech. Excited to see another #WomanInTech take charge at the workplace! We are sure HCL will achieve even greater heights in the future under your leadership,” it said.
Roshni has received several honours and accolades in recognition of her work both in business and in philanthropy, and is a trained classical musician.
She featured in ‘The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women’ list compiled and released by Forbes in 2017, 2018, and 2019, consecutively. She was also conferred with the Lewis Institute Community Changemaker Award by Babson College in 2017 and was recognised by Horasis, an internationally renowned think tank, as the Indian Business Leader of the Year 2019.
Roshni is also an alumnus of the Forum of Young Global Leaders (YGL, 2014-19), a diverse community of the world's next-generation leaders, an initiative of the World Economic Forum.
