A podcast guest is a different proposition from a keynote speaker. The format is conversational, the duration is long, and the listener is often alone with the voice in a way that requires a different kind of credibility and texture. The women on this list are not just accomplished professionally; they are capable of sustaining long-form conversation with specificity and depth. They include a veteran broadcast journalist who built an independent media company, a co-founder of two unicorn companies, the most recognised mutual fund CEO in India's retail investor market, a documentary filmmaker, a founder who created a literacy platform for South Asian writing, and the co-founder of one of India's largest beauty conglomerates. Their topics range across financial markets, entrepreneurship, media and storytelling, enterprise technology sales, women's safety, and brand building. They have been guests on major Indian and international podcasts, and they are available for new appearances. This list is for podcast hosts looking for guests who will hold the format and deliver something the listener has not already heard.
1. Radhika Gupta
MD and CEO, Edelweiss Mutual Fund
Radhika Gupta is the Managing Director and CEO of Edelweiss Mutual Fund and one of the most followed voices in Indian personal finance. She is a practiced and compelling podcast guest: her conversations range from markets and investing to mental health in professional life, career setbacks, and what running an asset management company at scale actually requires. She has spoken publicly about being rejected by multiple employers despite a strong CV and about the psychological costs of professional ambition, which gives her conversations a texture that goes beyond market commentary. She is also the author of a book on the Indian mutual fund landscape. Her podcast appearances span business and finance shows, women and leadership programmes, and general entrepreneurship conversations. She is effective in long-form formats because she combines technical expertise with a willingness to speak directly about failure and institutional dynamics.
Connect with her on LinkedIn.
2. Sumaira Abidi
Vice President, Investor Connect, SBI Mutual Fund; Author
Sumaira Abidi is Vice President of Investor Connect at SBI Mutual Fund, where she focuses on expanding retail investor reach, with a particular emphasis on women investors. She is also a published author, which gives her podcast appearances a different quality from those of speakers who communicate primarily through speaking or media appearances. Her conversations as a podcast guest span financial literacy and investor behaviour, the experience of working inside a large public-sector institution with a mass retail mandate, women and personal finance, and her own writing. She is an effective long-form guest because she speaks from direct operational experience about the specific challenges of reaching new investor segments in India, and her background as an author means she has developed the capacity to communicate complex financial ideas accessibly and at length.
Connect with her on LinkedIn.
3. Barkha Dutt
Journalist; Founder, MoJo Story
Barkha Dutt is one of India's most prominent broadcast journalists, with a reporting career spanning more than two decades covering conflicts, elections, disasters, and social movements across South Asia. She founded MoJo Story, an independent media platform, after leaving NDTV, building it on the premise that credible journalism does not require large institutional infrastructure. As a podcast guest she is a practitioner of long-form conversation rather than a passive participant: she brings a journalist's instinct for the specific detail that changes the frame of a conversation. Her topics as a guest include independent media economics, press freedom and government accountability, gender in journalism, women's safety and rights in India, the business of building an independent media company, and her experience covering major events in recent Indian history. She is a productive match for shows on media, politics, gender, and entrepreneurship.
Connect with her on LinkedIn.
4. Priya Thuvassery
Co-CEO and Documentary Filmmaker, Chambal Media
Priya Thuvassery is the co-CEO and a documentary filmmaker at Chambal Media, an independent production company making long-form documentary content. Documentary filmmaking in India is a constrained and specific field: budgets are limited, distribution outside broadcast is uncertain, and the subjects that make for significant documentaries often carry reputational and legal risk for those who make them. Her work sits at the intersection of journalism, filmmaking, and the business of running an independent media company. As a podcast guest she speaks on independent filmmaking and documentary journalism, the economics of content creation outside large broadcast institutions, what it takes to build an editorial-first media company in India, co-running a creative company, and the subjects her films have addressed. She is effective in long-form formats because her work requires her to explain complex social situations in narrative terms, which translates directly to conversational clarity.
5. Ghazal Alagh
Co-founder, Honasa Consumer (Mamaearth); Shark Tank India Judge
Ghazal Alagh co-founded Honasa Consumer, the parent company of Mamaearth, India's first direct-to-consumer unicorn in beauty and personal care, and has since expanded the portfolio to include multiple brands. The company listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange in 2023. As a Shark Tank India judge she became one of the most visible investor faces for the startup ecosystem in the country. As a podcast guest she speaks on building a D2C brand from zero, the IPO process and what it meant for Honasa as a company, co-founding with a life partner, navigating motherhood alongside company building, and what she looks for when evaluating startup pitches. She is an effective long-form guest because her professional experience spans the full arc of a consumer company's development from product inception to public market, and she speaks about it directly rather than in abstract terms.
Connect with her on LinkedIn.
6. Tista Sen
Founder, TistaThinks
Tista Sen is one of India's most recognised advertising creatives, with a career spanning major campaigns for leading brands across several decades at major agencies. She founded TistaThinks as a consulting and creative platform. Her background in advertising creative direction gives her podcast conversations a different texture from those of most business guests: she thinks about communication itself, about what makes an idea land or fail, and about the craft of persuasion at scale. As a podcast guest she speaks on brand building and advertising, creativity and commercial communication, the history and evolution of Indian advertising, women in creative leadership, career navigation in the creative industry, and the relationship between storytelling and commercial objectives. She is effective in long-form formats because she has spent her career making complex ideas comprehensible in very short time formats, which makes her unusually clear in conversation.
7. Namita Thapar
Executive Director, Emcure Pharmaceuticals; Shark Tank India Judge
Namita Thapar is Executive Director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals and one of the most recognisable investors from Shark Tank India, where her direct, analytical approach to evaluating startups made her one of the most followed judges. Her professional background combines pharmaceutical industry leadership with the broadcast experience of multiple seasons as a public-facing investor and entrepreneur. As a podcast guest she speaks on the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry in India, startup investing and what she looks for in early-stage companies, building within a family business, what Shark Tank India reveals about the state of Indian entrepreneurship, and women in business. She is a practiced and effective long-form guest because she communicates from operational experience rather than general principle, and her Shark Tank exposure means she has explained complex investment reasoning to mass audiences repeatedly.
Connect with her on LinkedIn.
8. Radhika Sachdev Chandra
Enterprise Sales Director, UiPath
Radhika Sachdev Chandra is Enterprise Sales Director at UiPath, an enterprise automation platform company that is among the leaders in robotic process automation globally. Enterprise sales at a company like UiPath involves selling complex technology solutions to large organisations, navigating multi-stakeholder procurement processes, and managing long sales cycles with high contract values. As a podcast guest she represents a perspective that is underrepresented in public conversation: senior women in enterprise technology sales, a commercial discipline where women are present at junior and mid levels but less visible in leadership roles and in media. Her conversation topics include enterprise technology sales and career development within it, the automation and RPA market in India, women in B2B technology commercial roles, and what building and managing enterprise sales teams requires at scale.
9. Naina Lal Kidwai
Former Country Head, HSBC India
Naina Lal Kidwai built one of the most consequential careers in Indian banking, including as Country Head of HSBC India, Group General Manager at HSBC Asia Pacific, and first woman President of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. She was also the first Indian woman to graduate from Harvard Business School. As a podcast guest she is a source of institutional memory and perspective that spans decades of transformation in Indian finance and business. She speaks on banking and financial services, the history of women in Indian corporate leadership, governance and board responsibilities, the intersection of business and public policy, and sustainability and water governance. She is effective as a long-form guest because she has led institutions through multiple economic cycles and can speak about what those cycles felt like from inside, not just in retrospect.
Connect with her on LinkedIn.
10. Prakruti Maniar
Founder, Purple Pencil Project
Prakruti Maniar is the founder of Purple Pencil Project, a literary platform, publisher, and community focused on South Asian literature and stories outside the mainstream English-language publishing market. Purple Pencil Project publishes and promotes writing that addresses the diversity of South Asian experience, and has built a substantial community of readers and writers around its editorial work. Her work sits at the intersection of publishing, community building, and literary advocacy. As a podcast guest she speaks on independent publishing, building a literary community, the business of books and media in India, South Asian literature and the stories being told outside mainstream publishing, and entrepreneurship in cultural and creative industries. She is an effective long-form guest for shows on culture, books, media, and creative entrepreneurship, bringing a specific and deeply informed perspective on storytelling and what the publishing ecosystem in India looks and feels like from the inside.
11. Ruchi Kalra
Co-founder, OfBusiness and Oxyzo
Ruchi Kalra co-founded OfBusiness, a B2B commerce platform serving Indian small and medium enterprises with raw materials procurement and financing, which reached unicorn status, and Oxyzo, a fintech company providing business lending to SMEs, which also achieved a unicorn valuation independently. Both companies address a large and specific gap: the working capital and procurement constraints that prevent small businesses from growing in India's economy. Her background in financial services and technology informs both companies, and she has built two of India's very few female-co-founded unicorns simultaneously. As a podcast guest she speaks on B2B entrepreneurship, fintech and business lending for SMEs, building multiple companies at the same time, the Indian SME sector and what financing its growth requires, co-founding with former colleagues, and what unicorn valuations look like from inside the companies that earn them.
Connect with her on LinkedIn.
12. Neha Singh
Co-founder, Tracxn
Neha Singh co-founded Tracxn, a market intelligence and data platform used by venture capital firms, corporates, and professional investors to research startup ecosystems, track emerging companies, and analyse investment data. Tracxn is listed on Indian stock exchanges, making her one of the few women co-founders of a publicly listed technology company in India. Before founding Tracxn, she worked at Google and Sequoia Capital India, giving her visibility across the technology sector from a global internet company, a major venture fund, and a company she co-founded and took public. As a podcast guest she speaks on startup ecosystem data and the VC landscape, building a B2B data product company, the IPO process from a founder's perspective, what the Indian startup ecosystem looks like in aggregate from someone who tracks it as a business, and women in technology entrepreneurship and investment.
Connect with her on LinkedIn.
About Draupadi on the Dais
Draupadi on the Dais exists in part because the default shortlist for podcast guests in India tends to recycle the same names across different shows. The platform is a resource for going deeper: finding the person who has not appeared on every business show in the country but who has something specific and grounded to say. Every speaker on the Dais is individually verified before their profile goes live. The women listed here bring a range of sectors, professional contexts, and communication styles to long-form conversation. If you are producing a podcast and looking for guests who will hold a ninety-minute conversation with depth and specificity, this list is a useful starting point.
Browse the full Women Podcast Guest Speakers roster on Draupadi on the Dais.