Chetna Gala Sinha

Chetna Gala Sinha is a passionate listener who respects risk-takers -- which makes her a powerful force in the banking world. A longtime activist and farmer, in 1997 she set up the Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank, India's first bank for and by rural women. Today, the Mann Deshi Bank has 90,000 account holders, manages business of more than Rs. 150 crores (or 22 million dollars) and regularly creates new financial products to support the needs of female micro-entrepreneurs. In 2006, Sinha founded the first business school for rural women in India, and in 2013, she launched a toll-free helpline and the first Chambers of Commerce for women micro-entrepreneurs in the country. In 2012, she set up a community empowerment program for farmers that supports water conservation; it has built ten check dams and impacted 50,000 people.

In January 2018, Sinha served as a co-chair of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and in November 2017, she was honored with a leadership award from Forbes India.