Female in finance9/10/2023 She was recruited as the Group General Manager and Country Head of HSBC Bank in 2002, and retired from the role in 2015. Naina Lal Kidwai is a pathbreaker among Indian women in finance in so many ways: she was the first Indian woman to get an MBA from Harvard Business School, the first woman president of the Federation of the Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), and the first woman to run the operations of a foreign bank in India. Her long career and global reputation makes Morparia one of the most powerful women in finance, not just in India but in South Asia. In 2008, Morparia retired from ICICI Bank and was hired as the first CEO of JP Morgan South Asia and South East Asia-a role she is expected to step down from this year. In the mid-1990s, she was asked to head the treasury department of the bank and contributed to ICICI Bank’s listing in the New York Stock Exchange (the second financial company from Asia to do so) in 1999. As a corporate lawyer, her role was to facilitate corporate financing in both domestic and international markets. The following are the top seven women in finance in India today.Ī trained lawyer from Government Law College, Mumbai, Kalpana Morparia went down her illustrious career path after joining ICICI Bank in 1975, where she worked for 33 years. Women at high and managerial positions in the financial sector account for 11 per cent of the workforce, which may fall below the global percentage of 16 per cent, but is still significantly high.Īt the helm of this workforce are many women leaders who have achieved some of the highest ranks, and are constantly inspiring the next generation of women entering the field. A study undertaken by the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) Bharat in 2018-19, titled Employment Opportunities for Women in India’s Growing Financial Sector, revealed that as of 2014, women accounted for 22 per cent of overall employment in all standard chartered banks in India. Though the entry of women during these decades was at clerical levels, slow-yet-steady career progressions led to women reaching the top echelons of the financial sector in the late-1990s and 2000s. A study titled ‘Women Participation in Indian Banking Sector: Issues and Challenges’, published in the International Journal of Science and Research in 2014, shows that attractive salaries, secured family life, favourable working conditions and stability at work made the banking sector a prime job-provider for women in the 1970s. In 1969, the government of India under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, nationalised 14 of India’s largest banks-a move which directly led to increased job opportunities for women in the sector. The rise of Indian banking and how it affected womenĪ key factor behind this rise of Indian women in finance has been the well-charted growth of the Indian banking and financial services sector. In the finance sector, this impact can be easily traced by listing the number of women bankers, financiers, and investors who have made it to the top of their field and hold some of the most powerful positions. Despite this position, which may also be attributed to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 (which not only interrupted outreach programmes like MUDRA but also affected all tiers of jobs), one must acknowledge the fact that women in industries like finance have been able to make a huge impact over the last few decades. This dismal position indicates that efforts to increase opportunities for employment and participation in all economic sectors for women are the greatest need of the hour. Instead of being able to bridge the divide, India’s gender gap has widened by 62.5 per cent, mainly due to inadequate representation of and leadership roles for women in all professions right from politics to healthcare and finance. The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021, which was released recently, reveals that over the last year, India has slipped 28 places to be ranked 140 among 156 countries. The world has finally realised that gender parity or equality in all fields is a crucial parameter of growth for not only developed economies but also developing ones like India.
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