An increasing number of women are now at the helm of affairs in some of India’s large companies across industries such as pharma, finance, FMCG, insurance, retail, and manufacturing. Here is a comprehensive list of highest paid women CEOs in India. We also breakdown the highest compensation packages of women executives and women CEOs in India’s business landscape.
Women continue to remain grossly underrepresented across India Inc, with the gap only widening as one moves up the corporate ladder. A 2026 study of BSE 200 companies found that just 17 of 262 salaried CEOs were women, or 6.5% of the total. Their pay lagged too: the median salary for women CEOs stood at ₹6.9 crore against ₹8.5 crore for their male counterparts, while the average gap was starker still: ₹8.4 crore versus ₹17.4 crore.
This disparity mirrors a broader pattern across corporate India, where women continue to earn less than men at nearly every level of seniority. The pattern holds across the broader market. PRIME Database's analysis of 2,285 listed companies found only 119 led by women CEOs — roughly 5% of the total.
Against this backdrop, executive pay or CEO compensation packages offers one more perspective into where women actually stand in corporate India's upper ranks. The following article lists India’s top paid women CEOs and women executives. Some of India's highest-paid female executives today lead companies including Lupin, JK Lakshmi Cement, Aditya Birla Capital, Hindustan Unilever, Nykaa, and Colgate-Palmolive India.
Methodology: How The Women CEOs and Executives are Ranked
The rankings below are based on the highest annual remuneration disclosed by each company in the public domain for the previous financial year — not on personal wealth, net worth, or holdings. Remuneration includes salary, allowances, performance bonuses, commissions, perks, and share or equity components, where a company has explicitly classified them as such.
Because disclosure practices vary across firms, these figures should be read as an indication of reported remuneration, not a measure of personal income or overall wealth.
Here’s the list of Top 10 Highest-Paid Women CEOs in India.
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