Top 5 Women In Financial Sector In India

After government’s approval for an all women bank, Usha Ananthasubramanian became the first CMD(chairperson and managing director) of the bank. She is a banking veteran who started her career in actuarial department of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India. Ananthasubramanian joined Bank of Baroda in 1982 as a specialist planning officer, wherein she had been involved in rebranding and HR initiatives which was part of Bank’s rebranding exercise.She has dual master’s degree in Statistics and Ancient Indian culture from University of Madras and University of Mumbai respectively. Usha brushed up her management lessons at Kellog Institute of management with a leadership & corporate excellence management programme.

An IIM-A and LSR alumuni, Shikha Sharma has an experience of over three decades in financial sector. She had a 29year-long career with ICICI, where she was instrumental in setting up various businesses like ICICI Securities and ICICI Prudential Life.In 2009, Shikha became MD and CEO of Axis Bank. The businessperson that Shikha admires is Steve Jobs, and like him she wants to make her bank one of the greatest in the country.Her excellent leadership qualities have won her various awards and recognition. In year 2012 she was awarded with ‘Transformational Business Leader of the Year’ at AIMA’s Managing India Awards, ‘Woman Leader of the year’ at Bloomberg-UTV Financial Leadership Awards and Businessworld’s Banker of the Year Award.

Kaku Nakhate, a graduate from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, has spent almost her entire career at Merrill Lynch with a small break in 2009. She joined J P Morgan India for a short stint, and returned back to Merrill Lynch in 2010. One significant change that happened in between was that DSP Merrill Lynch had now become Bank of America Merrill Lynch.Year 2010 can be referred as a year of biggest achievement for Kaku as she succeeded Kevan V Watts as India head at Merrill Lynch. She enjoys being in power. For her, power is a tool through which one can bring in a change and guide the firm to achieve goals and objectives. An early riser, gives a lot of importance to work life balance and her secret maintaining it is to have strong collaboration between both places.

Jodhpur-born Chanda Kochhar is the managing director (MD) & Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ICICI, the second largest bank of India. Kochhar joined ICICI in 1984 as a management trainee and since then has held various positions at the bank.Her career began with Project Appraisal and Monitoring. In 1996 she was given the charge of ICICI’s new Infrastructure arm. In year 2001, she was inducted into ICICI’s Board. After her induction in the board she was entrusted with the responsibility of setting up retail business of the bank. She was Joint managing director (MD) and CFO of the bank in 2007 when economies around the world were hit by recession and slowdown. In 2009, she succeeded KV Kamath as the CEO of the bank.Kochhar’s leadership took ICICI to new heights and it became the largest private sector bank in the country. She has been showered with awards and honours for her efforts time to time by the corporate as well as the government. She has consistently appeared in the list of most powerful women in business by Fortune magazine. In year 2010, she was awarded with the third-highest civilian award Padma Bhushan by the Government of India.