A chief strategy officer (CSO) is a C-level executive charged with helping to formulate, facilitate and communicate an organization's strategic initiatives and future goals. A CSO often reports to CEO or the CFO. A senior leadership team and the board of directors works closely with CSO, to develop the organization's long-term and short-term strategic initiatives and guide the organization through the planning business processes. It is relatively a new position. The role can go by many titles, including chief strategist or vice president of corporate strategy or strategic development.

As businesses are getting more and more competitive, Executive officers and the senior leadership team are facing pressure to continuously cultivate and implement more robust strategic initiatives that will help organizations achieve a competitive advantage. More organizations are realizing that strategic planning is a complex, full-time job that may require more focus, structure and exactitude than a CEO alone can provide. Hence the importance of CSO is increasing in every organization. This makes recruiting candidates for this position more challenging.

They perform duties like Develop a comprehensive, inclusive strategic plan and growth strategy by collaborating with the CEO, senior leadership and the board of directors, Collaborate with the CFO to develop a capital plan in line with the organization's strategy, Analyze market dynamics, market share changes and product line performance, Identify important capital projects, joint ventures, potential M&A targets and other strategic partnership opportunities, and many more.

The inclusion policies by numerous companies are encouraging more and more women to join boardrooms of various companies and India stands ahead in its boardroom representation of women.

Women Entrepreneur in this issue brings you a list of ‘Top 10 Women in Chief Strategy Officer – 2022’ who are torchbearers of success and have leveraged their extensive industry expertise and experience in bringing innovative solutions there by inspiring young aspirants all over the country. The following list has been prepared after being closely scrutinized by a distinguished panel of judges including CXOs, analysts and our editorial board.