The Hurun Research Institute released the Hurun Richest Self-Made Women in the World for 2026 on Tuesday, March 17, and featured three women of Indian origin on the list. List of components Radha Vembu, Falguni Nayar and Call Mazumdar Shaw as self-made female billionaires in the world.
The list of Hurun Research Institute includes 150 female billionaires from 20 countries of the world. 115 of them saw an increase in wealth, while 50 saw a decrease.
Indians in the Hurun list of the richest self-made women
As for India, Hurun said the country has grabbed the global spotlight thanks to a power trio of self-made billionaires — Radha Vembu of Chennai-based business management platform Zoho ($6.8 billion); Falguni Nayar of lifestyle and beauty retailer Nykaa ($4.6 billion) and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw of Bangalore-based drug maker Biocon ($3.4 billion).
“Their success together shows India’s fast-growing ecosystem for women in business or stay the same, 15 of which dropped out entirely. Total wealth grew by 52 percent, from $310 billion in 2023 to $470 billion in 2026, with 63% making money from listed companies,” the company said.
Who is Radha Vembu?
Radha Vembu is the co-founder of Zoho Corporation. She is also the sister of business tycoon Sridhar Vemba, Chief Scientist of Zoho Corporation.
Radha Vembu leads the list of women who appear most often on Hurun lists, including the Candere Hurun India 2025 Women’s Leaders list.
According to Fortune India, Radha Vembu “holds approximately 47.8% stake in Tamil Nadu-based private equity firm Zoho. Despite her considerable wealth and business clout, she generally prefers to stay out of the limelight and rarely appears in interviews.”
Who is Falguni Nayar?
Falguni Nayar founded Nykaa in 2012. Falguni completed her Masters in Business Administration (MBA) in Finance from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
She later became a manager at AF Ferguson & Co. Falguni spent 13 years at Kotak Securities where she held several positions.
From 2001 to 2007, she was Director and Head of Institutional Equities at Kotak Securities. For four years, starting in 2007, Falguni Nayar served as Managing Director of Kotak Investment Banking before founding Nykaa.
Who is Kiran Mazumdar Shaw?
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw completed her Bachelor of Science (B Sc) from Bangalore University and her Masters from the University of Melbourne.
Currently, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is the Chairman and Managing Director of Biocon. According to her LinkedIn, Kiran Shaw is listed as one of Fierce Biotech’s ‘World’s 25 Most Influential People in Biopharma’, Forbes magazine’s ‘World’s 100 Most Powerful Women’ and Fortune’s ‘Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Asia Pacific’.
“She was featured in Scientific American’s ‘The Worldview 100 List’ of the most influential visionaries and named among the ‘100 Leading Global Thinkers’ by Foreign Policy magazine. She was ranked #1 in the Business Captains category in the 2018 ‘Medicine Maker Power List’, an index of the 100 most influential people in medicine worldwide. Top 10, continuously since 2015. She was last voted full board member of The MIT Corporation, USA,” according to her inkedIn.
She was awarded the Padma Shri in 1989 and the Padma Bhushan in 2005.
