Arundhati Bhattacharya is an Indian banker and is currently the Chair-Managing director of the State Bank of India.She is the first woman to be the Chairperson of State Bank of India. In 2016, she was listed as the 25th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. she studied in S. X. S Bokaro.
Bhattacharya was born in a Bengali family in the city of Kolkata. She spent her childhood in Bhilai. Her father, Prodyut Kumar Mukherjee worked at Bhilai Steel Plant. Her mother, Kalyani Mukherjee was a homeopathy consultant in Bokaro. She completed her schooling from St. Xavier’s School, Bokaro.
She studied English Literature at Calcutta’s Lady Brabourne College and then at Jadavpur University. Her husband is an ex-professor of IIT Kharagpur.
Bhattacharya joined SBI in September 1977. She is the first woman to lead an India-based Fortune Global 500 company. Initially, she joined SBI in 1977 as probationary officer at the age of 22 years. She has held several positions during her 36-year career with the bank including working in foreign exchange, treasury, retail operations, human resources and investment banking. This included positions like the chief executive of the bank’s merchant banking arm- State Bank of India Capital Markets; chief general manager in charge of new projects. She has also served at the bank’s New York office. She has been involved in the launch of several new businesses such as SBI General Insurance, SBI Custodial Services and the SBI Macquarie Infrastructure Fund. She succeeded Pratip Chaudhuri, as Chairperson, who retired 30 Sep. 2013 She introduced a two-year sabbatical leave policy for the bank’s female employees to use either for maternity or elder care. On Women’s day, she announced free vaccination against cervical cancer to all the bank’s female employees.
In 2016, she was named the 25th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. This is her first time being ranked on the list. In the same year, she was ranked among the FP Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine. She was named the 4th most powerful women in Asia Pacific by Fortune.
(Ref : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arundhati_Bhattacharya & The Financial Express)