Speaking at the BSE during the launch of Aparajita, the Hindi edition of former State Bank of India Chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya’s memoir, Indomitable, Ambani stated that the Reliance Foundation would participate fully in such an initiative. He asked Bhattacharya and other accomplished women leaders to help lead it.
“Let us collectively start an effective initiative to strengthen the ecosystem that supports working women and working mothers in corporate India,” Ambani said. “You take the leadership; we will follow.”
The appeal gave the book launch a wider corporate purpose. Bhattacharya’s four-decade journey, from joining SBI as a probationary officer to becoming the bank’s first woman Chairperson and later leading Salesforce India, has come to represent both the possibilities available to women and the structural barriers they continue to encounter.
Ambani said the Hindi edition would carry her story to “the young women and men of Bharat” across cities, towns, districts and villages. That reach is important as businesses recruit more deeply from Tier-II and Tier-III India and a generation of first-time professionals attempts to navigate institutions historically shaped by metropolitan and English-speaking networks.
“Women are no longer merely beneficiaries of progress; they are its architects,” he said, pointing to their growing leadership across business, science, sport, the armed forces and communities. “When the women of India rise, India rises. And when the women of India become unstoppable, India becomes unstoppable.”
‘More EQ in leadership’
Bhattacharya has served as an independent director on the Reliance Industries board since 2018. Ambani described her as an independent-minded strategic thinker and problem-solver who listens patiently, challenges constructively and looks beyond immediate difficulties to their longer-term consequences.He also credited her with consistently pushing Reliance to treat diversity as a source of stronger leadership and better decision-making. The company, he said, now has many more women in senior roles.
“The world needs more emotional quotient than intellectual quotient—which is to say, more women in leadership positions,” Ambani said.
Bhattacharya’s career also challenged the notion that breaking a barrier is sufficient. She did not stop after becoming SBI’s first woman Chairperson, Ambani said, but continued mentoring young leaders and creating opportunities for others.
“The best they do not close the door behind them,” he said. “They hold it open for thousands of others coming in as well. " Ambani said
Published on September 10, 2026
