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The most powerful Indian CEOs of 2014

Infosys' CEO NR Narayana Murthy has regained the top spot in India's list of the most powerful CEOs, pushing Reliance Industries' Mukesh Ambani to second place.

The 10th annual list, compiled by The Economic Times and conducted by IMRB International, asks more than 500 corporate executives ranked vice-president, general manager and above to evaluate India's CEOs using parameters such as leadership, social contribution, performance and governance.

This year Murthy regained the top spot - although he has always remained in the top three - after being dropped last year when he took a step back at Infosys, and then coming back.

"Infosys is like my middle child, so when the board invited me to return and add value to the company, I could not say no, though some people said there would be no upside for me in this," he told Economic Times.

"Leadership is about doing the right thing, even if it means going against a vast number of naysayers and mediocre people." 

Coming in at seventh place, Chanda Kochhar, head of ICICI Bank, is the highest ranking woman, just ahead of Tata's Natarajan Chandrasekaran.

The entire list incorporates 100 Indian leaders - you view the full list here.

Here are the top 20 most powerful Indian CEOs of 2014:

1. NR Narayana Murthy, Infosys

2. Mukesh D Ambani, Reliance Industries

3. Kumar Mangalam Birla, Aditya Birla Group

4. Azim Premji, Wipro

5. Anil D Ambani, Reliance ADAG

6. Anand G Mahindra, Mahindra & Mahindra

7. Chanda D Kochhar, ICICI Bank

8. Sunil Mittal, Bharti Enterprises

9. N Chandrasekaran, Tata Consultancy Services

10. Deepak Parekh, HDFC

11. Cyrus Mistry, Tata Sons

12. Arundhati Bhattacharya, State Bank of India

13. Gautam S Adani, Adani Group

14. Shiv Nadar, HCL

15. Adi Godrej, Godrej Group

16. Uday Kotak, Kotak Mahindra Bank

17. Dilip S Shanghvi, Sun Pharmaceuticals

18. Aditya Puri, HDFC Bank

19. Naveen Jindal, Jindal Steel & Power

20. A M Naik, Larson & Toubrou

Image: Wikipedia

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