Shikha Sharma - Corporate
"Mrs. Shikha Sharma is the M D & CEO of Axis Bank, third largest private sector bank in India. Sharma joined Axis Bank in 2009 and as a leader adept at managing change; she has focused on transforming Axis Bank into a Bank with strengths across a wide range of Corporate and Retail Banking products. At Axis Bank, she has focused on strengthening its retail lending franchise, enlarged its investment banking & advisory capabilities and developed a comprehensive portfolio of products in the payments space.
Actress - Priyanka Chopra
"Priyanka is an Indian actress, singer, philanthropist, and the winner of the Miss World pageant of 2000. She made her debut with the film The Hero in 2003. Time magazine named her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Chopra is noted for her philanthropic work, and was appointed as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for Child Rights in 2010."
Entertainment Corporate -
Shobha Kapoor
"Shobha Kapoor is the Managing Director of Balaji Telefilms, a TV serial production house in Mumbai, India, run by her daughter, Ekta Kapoor. She takes care of the overall administrative and production activities of Balaji Telefilms. She has produced many Hindi soap operas, she trusted her daughter and encouraged her to follow her path, she is the strong support system of the Balaji."
Shaili Chopra - Journalism
Shaili Chopra is an Indian business journalist, author and entrepreneur. She is the founder of SheThePeople.TV, a video storytelling platform for women achievers and GolfingIndian.com, India's only platform dedicated to golf. Her career highlights include being the primetime anchor of NDTV Profit and ETNOW. She has 15 years of experience in television anchoring, reporting and writing columns. She was the lead anchor of the Timesgroup Business Channel before she turned a digital entrepreneur.
Special Recognition -
Karuna Waghmare
Indias first international level women bodybuilder. She has been training for the last 16 years is a professional bodybuilder and has participated in several national level competitions. She is a Yoga expert and gymnast, besides a dancer and has organized over a hundred fitness and body building training camps for women over the last few years.Miss India Fitness Physique Karuna Swami heads to 46th Asian Bodybuilding and Physique Sports Championships in China.
Special Recognition -
Saroj Khan
Saroj Khan is one of the most prominent Indian dance choreographers in Hindi cinema. She choreographed more than 2000 films. She was acclaimed for her work with Sri Devi, Hawa Hawai in Mr India (1987), Nagina (1986) and Chandni (1989) and later with Madhuri Dixit, starting with the hit Ek Do Teen in Tezaab (1988), Tamma Tamma Loge in Thanedaar (1990)[2] and Dhak Dhak Karne Laga in Beta (1992). Thereafter she went to become one of the most successful Bollywood choreographers.
Safeena Hussain - Social
"Educate Girls – is a non-profit organisation that aims at tackling issues at the root cause of gender inequality in India’s education system. Safeena Husain, graduate from the London School of Economics is an active social worker & the Founder/ Executive Director at Educate Girls – a non-profit organization in Mumbai, aims to tackle issues at the root cause of gender inequality in India’s education system. She has worked in the development sector with both rural and urban under-served communities around the world."
Special Recognition -
Sapna Moti Bhavnani
Sapna Moti Bhavnani, Co-Founder at Stop Acid Attacks, Founder of Mad O Wot, hairstylist to the stars (Hrithik and Kats to name a few), and also of Big Boss 6 fame, is associated with the Sheroes, working for the acid attack survivors.
Special Recognition -
Deepika Narayan Bhardwaj
Deepika Narayan Bhardwaj is an Independent Journalist and a Documentary Filmmaker from India. Her first short documentary Gramin Dak Sevak based on employment challenges of rural postal employees was Jeevika All Asia Livelihood Film Festival 2009, student film winner. Her second short documentary Youth Count focussed on youth and its attitude towards voting and elections. She has also worked on documentary projects for United Nations Environmental Program, USAID, Counterpart International, Sarthak Educational Trust covering issues related to women, people with disabilities and environment. Martyrs of Marriage is her first independent documentary feature which she has researched, scripted, produced and directed on her own.
Entertainment Creative -
Shanoo Sharma
"She is the casting director of Yash Raj Films and has done many projects like My name is Khan, I hate Luv stories, Yeh Saali Zindagi and Khoya Khoya Chand. A cult figure in the clout of casting directors, Shanoo has blockbusters like Dhoom 3, Jab Tak Hai Jaan,Ek Tha Tiger, My Name is Khan, Band Baja Baaraat etc to her credit."
Fine Arts Painting Sculpting -
Aarohi Singh
"A self-taught artist, Aarohi Singh loves to experiment with colours. She is known for her line of art on products and is credited with various series to her name. She showcased her First exhibition at Triveni Kala Sangam in 1994, since then the journey is on. ".
Fine Arts Performance - Aditi Mittal
"Aditi Mittal is an Indian stand-up comedian, actress,writer and has been rated amongst India’s top 10 stand-up comedians by The Times of India. Mittal was invited by the BBC for the prestigious 100 Women conference in London. Mittal has been featured in the American documentary Stand-Up Planet, along with American and South African comics. She was one of the first 5 Indians to be featured in an Indians only stand-up show called Local Heroes, organized by the U.K based “The Comedy Store."
Young Entrepreneur -
Anisha Singh
Anisha Singh began her career with the Clinton administration in Capitol Hill, helping women entrepreneurs raise funding for innovative women-led businesses. Later she joined Centra Software in Boston where she facilitated the setup of e-learning ecosystems for Fortune 500 companies. She launched her first venture in 2004, launching Kinis Software Solutions that provides digital content for real estate companies in the US
Special Recognition to a man by women-
Sabu George
"Sabu George has been working on protecting girl children (against practices of deliberate girl child neglect, female infanticide and sex selection) in India for 28+ years. His early work in India in the mid-80s resulted in recognition of female infanticide by the TamilNadu Government in 1991. Later, he documented the spread of sex selection in rural Haryana in mid-90s and been involved with public campaigns against female foeticide since late 90s. He had worked for strengthened legislation against female foeticide by litigation in Indian Supreme Court and lobbying with Parliament (1998-2003)."
Special Recognition -
Chhaya Momaya
A pioneer in Image Consulting, Chhaya Momaya’s expertise lies in grooming, etiquette and luxury brand building. A true fashionista and highly influential in Mumbai’s chic and elite circle.
S Prasanna Sree - Literature
Between 1991 to 2005, Prasanna went around 167 tribal villages across Central India collecting stories from them, comprehending them and recording them in the written form. Between the years 2006 till date, she has achieved, a feat that no one had even attempted before. Till date, she is credited with the discovery of 18 new tribal scripts. Today, she is perhaps the only woman English professor from the tribal community in any of the South Indian Universities.
Hetal Dave - Sports
Hetal is India's first and only professional female sumo wrestler. She has represented India in global sumo competitions and was placed fifth in the women’s middleweight category at the 2009 World Games in Taiwan.
She has represented India in Estonia, Taiwan and Poland global sumo competitions in two World Championships.
Priti Shroff - Health and Welness
"Priti Soff, MD, Prisim University has been doing a lot in the category of education. A Ph.d. From University of Madras, she has undertaken various projects for self employment of women, viz: inclusive education (an exclusive program for the visually challenged and under privileged children in the society), my saturday university, university school adoption program in which five schools have been adopted so far Village adoption programme are the innovative ideas that were created and implemented by Dr. Johnson."
Education - Geetanjali Babbar
"Kat-Katha- is an initiative that aims to provide a better life for sex workers and opportunities to find alternative livelihoods. Through Kat-Katha, Gitanjali provides women sex workers in New Delhi with caring support and the chance to pursue a basic education and develop job-related skills in tailoring, weaving, and craft making. Kat-Katha also offers classes to children living in brothels."
Special Recognition - Sathya Saran
A renowned journalist, she is the Editor of the Diligent Media Corp Ltd and has worked with Femina magazine and The Times of India. A teacher at National Institute of Fashion Technology, She is also the author of "10 Years With Guru Dutt: Abrar Alvi’s Journey". She has won several awards such as the Bharat Nirmal Award for Excellence in Journalism, Mahila Shiromani Award for Journalism, Most Significant News Story of the Year, and the Best Fashion Writer Kingfisher Award.
Ummeed Honors - Geeta Tandon
Geeta Tandon is one of Bollywood's most renowned stuntwoman. From being a married at 15, to being a marital rape victim and homeless with two kids at 20, escaping sex work by a whisker and making it big as a stuntwoman in Bollywood, the life of Geeta Tandon is a story worth noting.
The job of a stuntwoman requires training and an unwavering determination to perform the death-defying stunts that add the thrill factor to our films."
Tandon’s story is that of a survivor, the kind, ironically, you only hear in the movies. Tandon completed her matriculation studies and started her career as a dancer. She was offered work as stunt woman due to her attitude. She pulled off stunts for actors such as Deepika Padukone, Parineeti Chopra, Katrina Kaif and Bipasha Basu in films such as Chennai Express, Hasee Toh Phasee, Ragini MMS, Singh Saab The Great and Lamhaa.
Ummeed Honors - Durga Gudilu
"Durga Gudilu is a social reformist who won the fight to save her sister from a marriage decided by a Vaidu caste panchayat here, taking on an entire panchayat head on. Ms. Gudilu succeeded in changing the minds of the panchayat members, all men, and on Sunday, they dissolved the panchayat to form a development panel instead, for the social uplift of the community."
Ummeed Honors - A. Muruganantham
Arunachalam Muruganantham is a social entrepreneur from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, India. He is the inventor of a low-cost sanitary pad making machine and is credited for innovating grass-roots mechanisms for generating awareness about traditional unhygienic practices around menstruation in rural India. His mini-machines, which can manufacture sanitary pads for less than a third of the cost of commercial pads, have been installed in 23 of the 29 states of India. He is currently planning to expand the production of these machines to 106 nations. After Fempowerment Awards, Gurunantham was also honored with a Padmashree by the Govt of India. In 2017, Akshay Kumar portrayed him in his biopic, Padman.
Ummeed Honors - Ajeet Singh
Ajeet Singh is the founder of the NGO, Guria, at Shivdaspur, a suburb of Varanasi that works towards protecting women and their children from Sex Trafficking. He has rescued and rehabilitated over 1000s of Sex Workers and their children from Sex Traffickers.