?This isn?t a golf-playing beer drinking homogeneous culture, so still have to network, you still have to work hard but India?s diversity makes it easier,? says Naina Lal Kidwai, group general manager and country head, HSBC India. Lal believes the reason why so many women have made it to the corner rooms in India?s financial sector is because they?re easily accepted given that both men and women come from diverse cultures and so women are ?just another oddity?. Kidwai also believes women turn out to be better negotiators than men probably because they can read people better and therefore, have a better understanding of the person across the table.
Indeed, just before she took over as managing director and chief executive of ICICI Bank, Chanda Kochhar had said, in an interview, that women made for better bankers even though much depended on how they used the opportunities that came their way. ?I feel women are always better at managing finance,? the 47-year-old Kochhar, who runs the country?s second largest bank, had observed.
What has traditionally been a male bastion in the West, Indian women have clearly made it to the top. And that?s despite the challenges of also having to run a home.
Says Meera Sanyal, country executive (India), ABN Amro Bank, ?Once women get married and have children, no matter how supportive their home environment, there is the additional challenge of managing — being a professional, a wife and a mother, all of which are in themselves full-time jobs.? No matter how soft they are at home, in the workplace women can be hard ?headed professionals. Falguni Nayyar, head of investment banking at Kotak Mahindra, is convinced that when required, women can drive as hard a bargain as men. ?Of course, they can drive a hard bargain and usually in the nicest possible way,? says Sanyal.
Nayyar says it?s not surprising that ?we employ more women in banking and finance in India than in other parts of the world.? True, as HSBC?s Kidwai points out, ?There was a time not so long ago when we had more women CEOs in the banking and financial space in India than they had in the West.?
From the first lady of insurance Shikha Sharma, now Axis Bank MD, to Kalpana Morparia, country head at JP Morgan, to the two deputy governors at the Reserve Bank of India, Shyamala Gopinath and Usha Thorat, every piece of the financial services space has seen women making it big. The success of so many women having made it to the top may have inspired the younger generation, says Nayyar, because they seem to be showing a tremendous interest in financial services. Roopa Kudva, region head (South Asia), Standard and Poor?s, confirms this. ?More than 50% of the youngsters at our Global Analytical Centre are women,? she says, pointing out that even in the past, the cadres of public sector banks presented opportunities and therefore, did have a fairly rich representation from women. Adds Ashu Suyash, managing director and country head, Fidelity International, ?Compared with the previous decade, we have seen a sea change in favour of women choosing to make a career in financial services. What is enocuraging is that not only do we have many more women CEOs, but also more women as functional heads and many more at the entry level. Also, I believe more girls are opting for finance at the graduation and post-graduation levels today.”