Vibha Padalkar

HDFC Life named Vibha Padalkar, a chartered accountant who has been with the Indian life insurance company for more than 13 years, its CEO in 2018. In the fiscal year ending March 2021, HDFC Life, the largest private insurer in India, expanded its market share by 15.5% from 14.2%; it now insures over 40 million people across India. And despite COVID-19 devastating India, Padalkar has kept the company on an even footing. In the quarter that ended in June 2021, when the outbreak of the Delta variant quadrupled insurance payments and ate into the company’s profits, HDFC Life’s value of new business grew by 40%, increasing its market share further to 17.8%. In one of India’s largest insurance deals, HDFC Life also bought out its rival Exide Life Insurance in September 2021 for 66.87 billion rupees ($915 million) to boost its distribution of products across the country.

Subscribe to The Broadsheet, our newsletter on the world’s most powerful women.