Arundhati Bhattacharya, 57, the first woman boss in State Bank of India\u2019s (SBI\u2019s) 208-year history, calls herself chairman of the bank\u2014not chairperson. Immediately after moving into the corner room at the bank\u2019s headquarters on Madam Cama Road in Mumbai\u2019s business district of Nariman Point, Bhattacharya printed her business cards as chairperson but the bank\u2019s legal department advised her against it as the SBI Act does not have any provision for chairperson.<\/p>\n
Even before we settle down at the Belvedere club at The Oberoi in Mumbai, she expresses her unhappiness with the media. \u201cYou always try to sensationalize things\u2026. I remember reading hundreds of stories saying how rotten is our mid-day meal scheme but there was not a single article on how successfully some of the mid-day meal schemes have been run,\u201d she tells me with equal gusto while ordering \u201ctoddy\u201d\u2014a mocktail of lemon, honey, ginger, pepper, cardamom and clove, boiled in hot water\u2014tonic for her cold. I opt for watermelon juice. For starters, we order shami kebab that melts in the mouth and dahi kebab, made with hung curd.<\/p>\n
Born in north Kolkata, Bhattacharya, the youngest of three children of an electrical engineer, spent her childhood in the steel cities of Bhilai in Chhattisgarh and Bokaro in Jharkhand, where her father clocked long hours at the plants while her mother studied homoeopathy. She graduated in English literature from Lady Brabourne College in Kolkata and before completing her postgraduation at Jadavpur University, she tried her luck at becoming a probationary officer in the SBI, along with half-a-dozen classmates. The immediate provocation for looking for a job was her father\u2019s retirement. In 1977, when she got the appointment letter and a first-class train ticket to travel to Hyderabad, where the orientation course would be held at the bank\u2019s staff college, the entire hostel celebrated.<\/p>\n
Did she have any inkling when she joined the bank that one day she would become its chief? \u201cTheoretically, every probationary officer has a chance to become chairman. In that sense, all in our batch might have dreamt of bagging the top job,\u201d she responds.<\/p>\n
Why did it take so many years for a woman to become head of the bank? \u201cIt took time as initially not too many women were coming for an officer\u2019s job at SBI and many among those who were coming, gave up their careers midway for their family,\u201d Bhattacharya says. In 1977, less than 20% of the new officers were women. Now, the figure has doubled. Still, the percentage of women employees in the SBI is not very high. Among officers, it\u2019s about 17% and among all employees, about 23%. \u201cYour ability will get you the job but you also need to have age on your side. So if you started your career at 21, you have an advantage over others in your batch who started at, say, 24,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Bhattacharya, who took over from Pratip Chaudhuri as SBI chairman in October, has been able to balance home and office as she does not consider herself indispensable in either place. \u201cThat comes from a sense of insecurity. But more important than that, once you step out, the team should take over. I always focus on team building\u2014both in office and at home.\u201d When she goes for a long tour, her husband, a software professional based in Kolkata, comes to Mumbai to give company to their daughter.<\/p>\n
Bhattacharya got a whiff of the top job when she was made deputy managing director and corporate development officer in 2010. In her journey to the corner room, she superseded three senior colleagues\u2014Hemant Contractor, A. Krishna Kumar and S. Vishvanathan\u2014with whom she will have to work at least for a year. Isn\u2019t that difficult? \u201cThis is not new\u2026. A senior colleague not getting the top job is accepted in State Bank. What\u2019s important is respecting their abilities and giving them enough space. They are high performers. At State Bank all decisions are collective decisions. I have created the comfort zone,\u201d says Bhattacharya.<\/p>\n
As a professional, Bhattacharya always wants to be out of her comfort zone. Which is why, looking back, she doesn\u2019t see her 37-year career in the SBI as one job; it\u2019s a combination of 11 jobs that began with her first assignment at the foreign exchange wing at the Kolkata main branch and has run the gamut of retail banking, corporate banking, a stint in the US, treasury, rural banking, new business, metro business, HR, investment banking and, finally, her posting as the bank\u2019s chief financial officer, ahead of chairmanship.<\/p>\n
The most challenging assignment has been her involvement in new business, where she contributed to the setting up of general insurance, a private equity fund, a mobile application platform and pension funds. Between December 2007 and May 2009, as chief general manager, new businesses, she cobbled together three joint venture arrangements\u2014with investment banking and financial services group Macquarie for the private equity fund, Insurance Australia Group (IAG) for general insurance, and financial services company Societe Generale for custodial service.<\/p>\n
She finds customer service at the bank \u201cpatchy\u201d and wants it to be \u201cuniformly good\u201d. All the verticals of the bank now work as silos and Bhattacharya wants them to collaborate with each other. \u201cYou will find branches of State Bank and its associates in the same location. On an average, a customer is sold 1.7 products but it can be scaled up to five\u2026we are not playing to our strength.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SBI\u2019s profits have been on the decline for the past four quarters and bad assets have been on the rise. In the December quarter, the gross bad loans rose to 5.73% of total loans and net bad loans to 3.24%. If one adds restructured loans to gross bad loans, the pile is 9.06%. Bhattacharya says any solution will depend on how the economy does. \u201cThe bank is paying for the growth. It gave money to companies when the economy was growing at a healthy pace but now with the sudden decline in growth, companies are not in a position to pay back bank loans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bhattacharya sees massive stress in mid-corporate group and small and medium enterprises that do not have a diversified business model. They are suppliers to large companies who have stopped payments because of stress. Banks are helping such companies hive off and monetize non-core assets by identifying strategic investors and even looking for new management. \u201cNew players need to step in. We are seeing some silver linings\u2026. The highly leveraged companies are not asking for unrealistic valuations and companies sitting on cash in their balance sheets are looking for value buying. If the trend catches up, things will look up,\u201d says Bhattacharya.<\/p>\n
Apart from managing bad assets, Bhattacharya is focusing on raising productivity and leveraging IT to do many more things smartly. \u201cMy guys work hard\u2026. That\u2019s fine but they also need to work smartly,\u201d Bhattacharya says. She is communicating with them through a blog on the bank\u2019s internal social networking site and is also planning a Rs.1,000 crore employees stock purchase scheme.<\/p>\n
After a light Indian dinner of chicken curry, achari bhindi and dal with rice and phulka, I ask for rasmalai while she opts for Darjeeling tea. As a parting shot, I ask her for one thing that she wants to change about the bank immediately. \u201cThe service quality. I hate to hear complaints when I meet people at functions.\u201d I grab the opportunity to share with her my wife\u2019s experience as an SBI customer\u2014she doesn\u2019t get mobile alerts for banking transactions even though she has registered for the service. By the next morning, the problem is sorted out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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