Aisha De Sequeira, 

With De Sequeira at the helm, Morgan Stanley took centrestage last year as the giant of the investment banking world. Among its big-ticket deals: the $24 billion merger between Vodafone and Idea Cellular, the $900 million fund-raising for Kotak Bank, and $2.6 billion international bonds for Novellis. What enabled her to pull it off? “It’s the focus on clients, global networks, and differentiated content,” she says modestly.