Indian Women in Banking Industry: Breaking the Glass Ceiling?
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Themes: HRM \ OB
Pub Date : 2009
Countries : India
Industry : Services
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Case Code : HRM0061
Case Length : 20 Pages
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Shikha Sharma, Former MD of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance (now MD and CEO of Axis Bank) cont..
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According to Sharma, setting up an insurance company was easier than to enter the retail banking. Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) was the only public sector institution in insurance industry, with no strong private players. Identifying the potential of the insurance industry, she took the initiative to establish an insurance unit and started the operations from December 2000 after receiving approval from Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA) of India. ICICI was the first in the private sector to get a life insurance license. Initially, though it incurred losses, later it scaled up on a profitable basis. "Through Prudential, we have been able to set key performance indicators that help us see that we are operating on a profitable basis. This is in terms of productivity ratios among a host of others...We have met and exceeded targets on every single parameter,"27 she commented. She was confident about the venture's growth/success because it was offering maximum number of products through innovative channels. "We were the first to go in for multi-distribution channels - web, call centres, agents, bancassurance, corporate agents, broker distribution. When LIC was offering guaranteed returns on pension products, we decided against any guaranteed returns but offered our customers open market options,"28 she elaborated.. |
Under her leadership, the unit won many awards for excellence in management - ICICI Prudential
Life Insurance was awarded with the coveted 'ICAI Award for Excellence in Financial Reporting' by
the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) for the financial year ended March 31st 2008.29
Handling the position of MD was always been a hectic task, but she could prioritise her work and
family life and could balance both. Since day one she was with ICICI Prudential and continued to
maintain ICICI Prudential as India's largest private sector life insurance company, until she joined
Axis Bank as its CEO in April 2009.
Chanda Deepak Kochhar, MD and CEO of ICICI Bank Ltd.
Chanda Deepak Kochhar (Kochhar) began her career with ICICI in 1984 as a management trainee in Project Finance department and thereon ascended the success ladder by handling multidimensional assignments and leading all the major functions in the bank at various points of time. She worked in the areas of Corporate Credit, Infrastructure Financing, e-commerce, Strategy and Retail Finance. Kochhar has been serving on the board of directors of ICICI since 2001. She has proved her administrative capabilities in every department of the bank.
27]"Risk and romance: Shikha Sharma", op.cit.
28]Ibid
29]"Awards and Recognition", http://www.iciciprulife.com/public/About-us/Award-and-Recognition.htm