Poster Girls of Profit

In the last five years, not more than 30 women have chosen to go through the rigours of an MBA at IIM-A. Agrees Professor Vijaya Sherry Chand, chairman of the admissions committee, ‘‘Yes, the number of women enrollments has risen in the last few years. However, this could also be due to the increased numbers of seats available now.’’

There is no denying, though, that women are seen as more efficient and effective managers. ‘‘Despite similarities between male and female managers, I think women do a better job managing resources (funds) and what sets them apart is their mindset, an intuitive knack for managing funds,’’ says Indira Parikh, IIM-A’s dean. Their innate training, according to her, comes from managing a household with limited resources. So women take fewer risks while trying to maximise benefits. Men, in contrast, are trained to multiply money, ergo more risk. QED.

Ashok Bagariya

Ask Shalini Tibrewala her age and she withdraws into a shell. But when it comes to work, this young financial wiz—who manages business of Rs 25,000 crore per annum by buying and selling equities and bonds on a minute-by-minute basis—has lots to say. ‘‘It’s highly stressful,’’ says the chartered accountant and company secretary. ‘‘As I am dealing with other people’s hard-earned money, I have to be more careful and committed.’’

Since Tibrewala joined JM in 1997, she’s been pushing a 12-hour-plus working day. Any woman who wants to get into this field must give 100 per cent, as job openings are very limited,” she says. ‘‘You have to be good at your job every day as you can lose money in minutes,’’ says the sitar aficionado. The Sydenham College (Mumbai) alumna adds that there’s no substitute for on-job training.

So where does the part-time astrologer see the Sensex six months from now? ‘‘Both as a fund manager and as an astrologer, I see a bright future for Indian equity markets,’’ smiles Tibrewala, who likes to travel across the globe to holiday. Her best travelling adventure till date? Easy: The daily commute from Bandra to Churchgate in Mumbai’s local trains.

She loves financial freedom. Not only for herself, but for all those women who go out of their homes and work in hostile conditions. A alumna of Sydenham and N M Management, Mumbai, Kavita Hurry—who manages assets worth Rs 1,600 crore—says even small savings will ensure economic independence for women. ‘‘I wasn’t born with a silver spoon,’’ she says. Indeed, when Bank of Credit and Commerce International crashed in 1991, she was suddenly out of a job. Small savings saved the day.

Teamwork—both at home and in office—is crucial. ‘‘You must build a good team. My home team is led by my husband and my mother-in-law, who have provided me with a good support system so that I can concentrate on my work,’’ says Hurry, who was one of the first people to start private banking operations in India for ING Vysya. And why does she not have a single woman fund manager in her team? Pat comes the reply: Show me a good one and I’ll hire.

While the rest of India sleeps, Kaku Nakhate is busy selling the India story. ‘‘I have to take calls at 2.00 am when any jittery foreign institutional investor calls me from New York, to know what’s happening in India,’’ says the co-head equities of DSP Merrill Lynch and a veteran of 16 years at Dalal Street. ‘‘They trust us for our knowledge of what’s happening on the ground,’’ says Nakhate, who learnt how to handle money from her businessman father.

‘‘It was difficult in the initial years,’’ remembers the 1988 batch student from NM Management Institute, Mumbai. But Nakhate—responsible for business development and institutional client interaction—has no regrets. ‘‘The most important thing for a woman in this field is to make up her mind. The long hours can be a big problem, so can the travelling with clients. But all these can be managed,’’ she laughs.

She finds the new generation of women managers very focused and wanting to know their career graph before joining. ‘‘I tell them that the career graph will depend on performance… but the high confidence levels are a good indicator of things to come,’’ she adds. The key to success: Managing the emotions and growth of a team.

Economic independence drives Vishaka Mulye, head of ICICI Bank’s structured finance-credit markets. Just when Mulye cleared her CA exam in 1992, the Harshad Mehta scam hit the financial markets, squeezing out all the jobs. With no one recruiting, all she could get was a management trainee post in the project finance department of the then ICICI. ‘‘But what I learnt was that no one should give up their economic independence irrespective of all odds,’’ says Mulye, who now runs one of the biggest treasury operations in the country.

She got her break in 1997 as executive assistant to S Mukherjee, who was in the core team of ICICI Bank honcho K V Kamath. While keeping company with some of India’s best women money managers, Mulye’s main task is to do profit planning for the emerging retail banking powerhouse. Mulye says it’s a big challenge for a woman to manage dual responsibilities at home and in office, but with support from family members, it can be managed. ‘‘At times it becomes an emotional issue that a woman is unable to spend much time at home. But that is compensated by the economic independence enjoyed by her,’’ says Mulye. Her motto: Move up in life.

The Path-breakers

Naina Lal-Kidwai
HSBC Securities
Needs no introduction apart from the fact that she has made it to Fortune’s list of most powerful women for the last three years. This highly-paid poster girl for investment banking was the first Indian woman to go to Harvard B-School (in 1982). Hit the big time when she put together the JM Morgan Stanley JV in the mid-1990s.

Renu Karnad
HDFC
Executive director of the largest home loan firm in the country, Renu Karnad graduated in law and holds a Masters degree in Economics from Delhi University. A part of the core team of HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh, Karnad is responsible for all aspects of lending operations in HDFC.

Madhabi Puri-Buch
ICICI Bank
This post-graduate from IIM Ahmedabad started as a sales girl at British Homestores as she followed her husband to the UK.

Today, Puri-Buch heads the international banking operations of ICICI Bank. Her philosophy: ‘‘I don’t like breathing down people’s necks and I don’t like throwing them to the wolves either. When they make a mistake, I definitely stand up and defend them.’’

Chanda Kochar
ICICI Bank
A gold medalist from Mumbai’s Jamnalal Bajaj Institute, Kochar joined ICICI in 1984. She started ICICI Bank’s key initiatives like infrastructure lending, structured products group and major clients group. In July 2000, Kochar moved on to lead the retail push of the group as the managing director of home finance and personal financial services. Today, she heads the entire retail division of India’s second-largest bank.

Shikha Sharma
ICICI-Prudential Insurance
As MD of India’s biggest private sector insurance company, Sharma has got her work cut out. She has to not only continue the aggressive foray of ICICI Prudential into the competitive insurance industry, but also retain the numero uno position.