Finance panels in India have historically been dominated by men, despite women holding some of the most consequential positions in the country's financial services sector. The women on this list include the CEO of one of India's most prominent mutual funds, the founder of a private equity firm, the co-founder of two unicorn companies, and the CEO of the India operations of one of the world's largest fintech companies. They have built lending institutions for underserved markets, created investment platforms designed explicitly around women investors, managed billions in assets under management, and led major private and public sector banks through periods of significant transformation. Their speaking topics span personal finance and investor behaviour, fintech and digital banking, private equity and venture capital, financial inclusion, and the dynamics of building financial services companies in India. The gap between the seniority of women in Indian finance and their presence on financial conference stages remains large. This list is a resource for closing it.
1. Renuka Ramnath
Founder, Multiples Alternate Asset Management
Renuka Ramnath spent over two decades at ICICI Group, including as Managing Director and CEO of ICICI Venture, one of India's largest private equity funds, before founding Multiples Alternate Asset Management in 2009. Multiples invests in growth-stage Indian companies across consumer, financial services, healthcare, and technology sectors, and has backed several companies that have gone on to list on Indian exchanges. As one of a very small number of women to have founded and run a significant private equity fund in India, she brings a specific vantage point to conversations about capital allocation, the investment decision-making process at the institutional level, and what backing a company across its growth phase actually looks like from the inside. She speaks on private equity and alternative asset management, the Indian investment landscape, women in financial services and investment roles, building a fund management business, and the governance of growth-stage companies. Her career spans the full arc of Indian private equity's development as an industry.
2. Radhika Gupta
MD and CEO, Edelweiss Mutual Fund
Radhika Gupta is the Managing Director and CEO of Edelweiss Mutual Fund, one of India's growing asset management companies. She has become one of the most recognised voices in Indian personal finance, known for communicating consistently and directly about markets, investment behaviour, and the mutual fund industry in a way that reaches retail investors rather than just industry insiders. She has spoken publicly about being rejected by multiple employers early in her career and about mental health in professional life, which has made her a credible voice on career resilience and the pressures facing professionals in financial services. Her speaking topics include mutual funds and personal finance, investor behaviour and financial literacy, women and investing, building a brand in financial services, and leadership in asset management. She is also the author of a book on the Indian mutual fund landscape and is among the most followed financial services voices in India on social media.
Connect with her on LinkedIn.
3. Kirthiga Reddy
Partner, SoftBank Investment Advisers
Kirthiga Reddy was the founding Managing Director of Facebook India, joining when the company was establishing its India operations and helping build it into one of its major global markets. She subsequently moved to Facebook's US headquarters as a Vice President before transitioning to investment. She is now a Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, one of the world's largest technology investors. Her career trajectory, from building a global technology platform's India presence to investing in technology companies at scale globally, gives her a perspective that spans both operating and investing roles at the highest levels. She speaks on technology and media investment, venture capital and growth investing in India, building a company's India presence from scratch, women in technology and investment roles, and the India growth story as seen from both inside an operating company and from a global investment fund.
4. Hardika Shah
Founder and CEO, Kinara Capital
Hardika Shah founded Kinara Capital to provide working capital loans to micro and small enterprises in India, with a focus on reaching businesses owned by women and those located outside major urban centres that are typically well served by formal banking. The gap she addresses is specific: businesses too large for microfinance but too small or informal for bank loans, falling into a credit exclusion zone that has limited their growth. Kinara Capital uses technology to make credit assessments on businesses that lack the documentation formal lenders require, and has disbursed loans to tens of thousands of small businesses across multiple states. She speaks on financial inclusion and small business lending, women entrepreneurs and access to capital, fintech and credit technology, building a business in the MSME lending space, and the regulatory and market dynamics of India's credit ecosystem. Her work addresses one of the most persistent structural gaps in the Indian economy.
5. Aditi Kothari Desai
Director and Head, Sales and Marketing, DSP Investment Managers
Aditi Kothari Desai comes from the DSP family, one of India's most prominent financial services dynasties, and serves as Director and Head of Sales and Marketing at DSP Investment Managers, a leading Indian asset management company with a long institutional history. Her role sits at the intersection of investment management and distribution, giving her a perspective on how financial products are built for and sold to Indian investors across different demographics and channels. She speaks on marketing financial services in India, the distribution dynamics of the Indian mutual fund industry, women and personal finance, building a career in financial services, and the changing investor base in India as market participation expands to new segments of the population. Her family background and professional role give her a view of the Indian capital markets ecosystem that spans generations and multiple institutional perspectives.
6. Dr. Jasmin B Gupta
Co-founder and CEO, LXME
Dr. Jasmin B Gupta is the co-founder and CEO of LXME, a financial platform built specifically for women in India, designed to close the persistent gap in financial products, education, and services genuinely shaped around how women earn, save, and invest across different life stages. The platform rests on a specific thesis: that the financial industry's standard products and communication were designed for a male default user, and that building differently for women is both commercially viable and socially necessary. Her background in investment banking and financial advisory informs her product decisions. She speaks on women's financial literacy and the gender wealth gap, fintech entrepreneurship in India, building a company with an explicit social mission in a regulated sector, and what changes when financial platforms are designed with women as the primary user rather than as a niche segment.
Connect with her on LinkedIn.
7. Shilpa Bhaskar Gole
Founder, NerdyBird Financial Wellness
Shilpa Bhaskar Gole is the founder of NerdyBird Financial Wellness, a platform focused on financial education, planning, and literacy, particularly for professionals seeking to build sustainable financial habits rather than just accumulate investment products. The NerdyBird approach positions financial wellness as an ongoing practice rather than a transactional relationship with a product or adviser, which gives her speaking work a different orientation from most financial services voices. She speaks on personal finance and financial wellness, building a financial education business, the psychology of money and financial decision-making, women and financial independence, and what good financial planning looks like at different life stages for Indian professionals. She brings the perspective of a practitioner working directly with individuals on their financial lives rather than from inside a product company or asset management firm.
8. Paroma Chatterjee
CEO, Revolut India
Paroma Chatterjee serves as CEO of Revolut India, leading the India operations of one of the world's most prominent consumer fintech companies with a global customer base in the tens of millions. Revolut entered India as part of its expansion into Asian markets, and leading its India operations requires navigating both the Reserve Bank of India's regulatory environment and a highly competitive Indian digital payments and banking landscape where the infrastructure is already advanced. Her role places her at the forefront of global fintech's encounter with India's specific market conditions. She speaks on fintech and digital banking, building and scaling consumer financial products in India, the regulatory environment for fintech companies, leadership in high-growth technology-driven organisations, and the dynamics of launching a global product into a market with well-established payment infrastructure.
9. Sumaira Abidi
Vice President, Investor Connect, SBI Mutual Fund; Author
Sumaira Abidi serves as Vice President of Investor Connect at SBI Mutual Fund, where she works at the intersection of financial services and retail investor outreach, with a particular focus on reaching women investors across India's urban and semi-urban markets. She is also a published author. Her speaking work in the fintech and finance space centres on women and personal finance, the structural barriers that prevent women from building financial independence in India, and what inclusion looks like inside a large public-sector institution with access to a mass retail market. She speaks on financial literacy as a gender equity issue, the investment patterns and constraints specific to Indian women across income brackets, the role of financial institutions in closing the gender wealth gap, and what genuine inclusion of women as investors requires beyond marketing communication.
Connect with her on LinkedIn.
10. Shalini Warrier
COO, Federal Bank
Shalini Warrier is the Chief Operating Officer of Federal Bank, one of India's major private sector banks headquartered in Kerala with operations across the country. The COO role in a bank of Federal Bank's size covers banking operations, technology, and service delivery in their full breadth, making her one of the most senior women in operational leadership in India's private banking sector. She has been associated with Federal Bank's digital banking initiatives and its expansion toward technology-enabled financial services delivery. She speaks on banking operations and technology, digital transformation within traditional financial institutions, women in banking leadership, the dynamics of modernising a legacy bank while maintaining service continuity, and operational leadership in regulated industries. Her perspective is grounded in the daily reality of managing a major bank's internal workings rather than in commentary from outside the institution.
About Draupadi on the Dais
India's financial services sector has produced women at its highest levels: fund managers, private equity founders, bank COOs, fintech CEOs. Their underrepresentation on finance conference stages is not a pipeline problem. The expertise and the willingness to speak both exist. Draupadi on the Dais exists in part to make those connections easier and more systematic. Every speaker on the platform is individually verified. Professional standing and track records are confirmed before profiles go live. If you are running a fintech event, an investor summit, a wealth management conference, or a financial literacy programme, the women on this list can bring credibility and operational depth that changes the quality of the conversation.
Browse the full Women Fintech and Finance Speakers roster on Draupadi on the Dais.