A Manimekhalai takes over as chief of Union Bank of India

A Manimekhalai

Government-owned Union Bank of India has appointed A. Manimekhalai, Executive Director (ED), Canara Bank, as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (MD & CEO) of Union Bank of India for a period of three years, the lender informed the exchanges on June 3.

On June 2, Moneycontrol first reported on Manimekhalai’s appointment as the new chief of Union Bank. Manimekhalai will take charge with immediate effect and will become the only serving woman CEO in public sector banks (PSBs).

This wasn’t the case till a few years ago. There were many more women CEOs in the country across banking groups. Arundhati Bhattacharya was leading the country’s largest bank, State Bank of India (SBI), Chanda Kochhar was the CEO of private giant ICICI Bank, and Shikha Sharma was at the helm at Axis Bank. Usha Ananthasubramanian was the CEO of Allahabad Bank, and Naina Lal Kidwai the head of HSBC India.

Manimekhalai holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree in marketing from Bangalore University and has also cleared the Certified Associate of Indian Institute of Bankers (CAIIB) exam, a premium test conducted by the Indian Institute of Banking and Finance.

She started her career in 1988 with Vijaya Bank, where she held various leadership roles such as general manager, branch head, regional head and functional head of various departments at the lender’s corporate office. You can read her detailed profile here.

Besides Union Bank, certain other PSBs too are set to get new chiefs.

On June 2, Moneycontrol reported that the Centre had approved the appointment of Swarup Kumar Saha, ED, Punjab National Bank, as MD & CEO of Punjab & Sind Bank, for three years.

The report also said that Ajay Kumar Srivastava, ED, Indian Overseas Bank (IOB), has been appointed the new MD & CEO of the bank, for three years.

While the two banks are yet to name new chiefs, in a notification to the exchanges on June 3, Punjab & Sind Bank said that its former chief S Krishnan had retired from the bank upon attaining superannuation on May 31.