Yearender 2021: 5 women who broke the glass ceiling in the Biz world this year

From  Gita Gopinath becoming the First Woman Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund to entrepreneurs who built their companies into Unicorns, here is a list of women, who broke the glass ceiling in 2021.

Leena Nair has been named the new global CEO of French fashion house Chanel. With this, Nair's 30-year-long career at Unilever came to an end with her as the chief of human resources and a member of the company's executive committee. Nair will now be based out of London and will join the luxury house at the end of January. In a rare move for the tightly-controlled fashion house, picking the consumer goods veteran to run one of the world's biggest luxury groups sends a positive and inclusive message, setting the pace in an industry reeling under pressure to show a more inclusive and accepting approach.

In November, Nykaa had a stellar opening of its stocks which rose its market capitalisation to over Rs 1 lakh crore. Listed at Rs 2,001 at the opening bell, the scrip, as against the offer price of Rs 1,125. The bumper opening catapulted its promoters Nayar family --with CEO Falguni Nayar at the helm --as one of India`s richest self-made billionaires. At present, the promoter family holds around 53 per cent stake in the firm FSN E-Commerce Ventures, which owns Nykaa. The stake at the opening price of Rs 2,001 per share was worth over $6.5 billion.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced that Gita Gopinath, currently chief economist of the IMF, is set to succeed Geoffrey Okamoto as the institution's First Deputy Managing Director (FDMD) early next year. Gopinath, a US national and overseas citizen of India, will start in her new position as FDMD on January 21, 2022, according to the IMF. Prior to joining the IMF as chief economist in early 2019, Gopinath was the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and Economics in the economics department of Harvard University.

Just like Falguni Nayar, another woman entrepreneur who has built their companies into Unicorns is Divya Gokulnath of Byju's (Think & Learn). Divya Gokulnath is also the latest entrant in this year's Forbes rich list with combined net worth is $4.05 billion.

OfBusiness Cofounder Ruchi Kalra deserves a mention in the list. In July this year, the startup turned unicorn post SoftBank-led $160 million funding. OFB Tech (OfBusiness) is a tech-enabled platform that facilitates raw material procurement and credit for SMEs with focus in the manufacturing and infrastructure sectors, reads the company's website. More recently (December 20), the Industrial goods and services procurement platform scooped up $325 million in its Series G round led by Alpha Wave Ventures II, Tiger Global Management and Softbank Vision Fund 2.