Who is Soma Mondal, featured on Forbes' Most Powerful Women list?

Soma Mondal is the Chairman of SAIL.

Soma Mondal, the trailblazing leader and the first woman to chair the state-run Steel Authority of India (SAIL), has been ranked at 70 in Forbes’ World’s Most Powerful Women list 2023. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, chairperson of HCL Technologies Roshni Nadar Malhotra, and Biocon chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw are other Indian women to make it to the list.

About Soma Mondal

Taking the helm at SAIL in January 2021, Mondal navigated the steel giant to record-breaking profits, soaring threefold to 120 billion rupees within her first year. Her journey with SAIL began in 2017 when she assumed the role of Director (Commercial). Mondal spearheaded the implementation of marketing strategies, resulting in consecutive best-ever sales volumes from 2017-18 to 2019-20.

A graduate in Electrical Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, Mondal, 60, boasts over three decades of experience in the metals industry. Her ascent from a Graduate Engineer Trainee at the state-run National Aluminium Co. to the first woman Functional Director of SAIL and subsequently its Chairman speaks volumes about her expertise and leadership.

Forbes wrote, lauding her: “She's responsible for launching an 80,000-million-rupee effort to expand production capacity.”

She also introduced reforms in the Marketing Organization Structure, creating three verticals—Sales, Marketing, and Services—to enhance focus and micro-management. To tap into the potential of rural India, Mondal organized "Gaon Ki Ore" workshops across the country, promoting the branding efforts of SAIL's products.

Read: Nirmala Sitharaman and 3 other Indians feature on Forbes' List of Most Powerful Women 2023

Born and raised in an Odia middle-class family in Bhubaneswar, Mondal is also a member of the CII-National Committee on Steel and Chairperson of the CII sub-committee on 'Safeguard for Tariff and Non-Tariff Barrier', SAIL wrote on its website.