Chanda kochhar

Name: Rana Siddhart v. Enrollment No: 107710592028

 Chanda Kochhar, Managing Director and CEO of ICICI Bank, India's largest private sector bank, could even "command an army", according to its Chief Human Resources Officer, N. Ramkumar, who has worked with her for 10 years.

About Chanda kochhar

 Chanda Kochhar joined ICICI in 1984 as a management trainee. She was 22, and ICICI was still the Industrial Credit & Investment Corporation of India (ICICI Bank was formed in 1994). The man, who hired her, Managing Director and CEO K.V. Kamath, remembers being impressed by her focus. For Kochhar, making inroads in a male dominated field was a challenge. ICICI was then a development finance institution that lent to companies. "It was not easy to visit a factory," she says. "There was a lot of social pressure people didn't expect a young girl could check machines."

Kochhar joined ICICI

 Sitting in her functional yet elegant office in Mumbai's Bandra-Kurla Complex, the hub of the financial services industry, she talks about the values she grew up with: integrity and perfection. These are just two of the attributes that have made her one of the country's most capable business leaders. Kochhar's achievement is all the more remarkable, considering her father died when she was 13. Three years later, the family moved from Jaipur to Mumbai. Years later, as a hard-nosed banker, she would buy one of the largest banks in her home state - the Bank of Rajasthan. Despite 30 years in Mumbai, she cherishes her Rajasthani heritage, as her bandhni sari suggests.

Kochhar in ICICI

 What drives her steely determination to get what she wants? She says: "My passion lies in the pursuit of excellence - can I do it very well, better than others?" Kamath recalls the time when Kochhar was given charge of corporate banking, in 1993. "This was the first time ICICI had to meet clients. She set up, for the first time, client relationships. And the annual target I had set, she achieved in the first quarter."

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 Chief Financial Officer N.S. Kannan, an old-timer at the bank, points out that the 2008 global financial crisis led to a Rs1,050-crore decline in ICICI Bank's profit after tax for 2008/09. In December 2008, Kochhar, then Joint Managing Director and group CFO, was named Kamath's successor. "She did not lose her composure for even a day," says Kannan. Kochhar, who says she believes in "recognising challenge in its entirety, and taking it head on", led a quick turnaround. She consulted her core team and worked out a new strategy. The 4C strategy - cost, credit, CASA (current account and saving account) ratio, and capital - marked a significant shift from ICICI Bank's strategy of powering its growth with retail loans.

Kochhar use strategy in 2008

 Within a few months of taking up the top job, she managed to get the board's approval for the strategy without much trouble. The decision-making process was democratic, and after the strategy was finalised, it was explained to every employee. Kochhar's first big step as CEO worked. The bank reported a 30 per cent jump in profit for the first quarter of 2011/12, and expects to maintain its net interest margin - a key measure of profitability - at 2.6 per cent for the year. At a time when most lenders have reported a drop in interest margins, Kochhar's script has played out on cue.

Chanda Kochhar, Managing Director and CEO of ICICI Bank

 Chanda say: India today is associated with high growth and varied opportunities. The three core values that I would associate with Brand India are innovation, dynamism and adaptability. We have innovated to meet our challenges and establish a growth paradigm for ourselves. We are a dynamic economy which has changed rapidly over the last two decades. And we are adaptable, reorienting our thought processes and strategies in tune with emerging opportunities.

values

THANK YOU.
Rana Siddharth