Lessons out of the life of Arundhati Bhattacharya
GS Paper IV: Lessons out of the life of administrators
Consistency: Joined
as a probationary officer in 1977; has been with SBI for more than four
decades.
Donning different hats: She is not fatigued even after spending four decades
in SBI as she does not treat her career as one job in one bank but a dozen jobs
with different challenges—ranging from working at the foreign exchange wing in
Kolkata to a stint in the US and retail banking, corporate banking,
treasury, new business, human resources, investment banking in Mumbai and,
finally, the assignment of the bank’s chief financial officer before
moving to the corner room.
Adapts progressive forces such as rise of IT: Despite its much larger size, SBI is more
nimble-footed than most of its peers on the digital space and probably the most
aggressive bank in using social media.
Bhattacharya’s colleagues like her flexibility in
approach to business. An example of that
is junking the agreement signed with Gujarat’s Adani Group to build a $7.8
billion coal mine in Australia when she found that it would not be viable—a
project announced with much fanfare in Brisbane where Adani Group boss Gautam
Adani was accompanying a business delegation for the Group of 20 summit,
attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Expresses views appropriately: She is articulate but not flamboyant. She has strong
views on many things which she expresses in closed door meetings with the
banking regulator and the finance ministry but, unlike her two immediate
predecessors she doesn’t fight openly with the regulator.
Realist and doesn’t ignore the elephants in the room: After she took over as boss, every Saturday
afternoon, she would hold a meeting on bad loan resolution. At these
meetings, which at times stretched till late evening, accountability would be
fixed and the executives concerned would need to get back with resolution plans
in a week.
A team leader: None
of these attributes may be entirely new for a person who runs the nation’s
largest lender but what distinguishes Bhattacharya from others is that she always
carries her people along with her, something which many of her predecessors
could not do.
Source:
The importance of being
Arundhati Bhattacharya
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