The government on June 2 appointed Canara Bank executive director A. Manimekhalai as the new managing director and chief executive officer (MD & CEO) of Union Bank of India for a period of three years, Moneycontrol exclusively reported on Thursday.
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.
After Vijaya Bank was merged with Bank of Baroda in 2019, the government appointed Manimekhalai as an executive director at Canara Bank for three years. Her tenure was extended by two years in August last year.
Manimekhalai also holds is a director at four Canara Bank subsidiaries including Canbank Factors and is also a board member of the General Insurance Corporation of India.
Her work at Vijaya Bank and Canara Bank ran the gamut of policymaking, strategic planning, setting organisational goals and liaising with regulatory authorities, among others. She was instrumental in driving business growth and effective bad loan management, and conceptualising, designing and launching various retail loan and deposit products.
She led various marketing campaigns and worked on implementing the risk-based supervision system at Vijaya Bank. She also led Vijaya Bank’s transition from the manual risk-based internal audit regime to a totally computerised online system that significantly enhanced reliability, speed and adherence to regulatory requirements.
During the merger of Vijaya Bank with Bank of Baroda, Manimekhalai was listed as a key managerial personnel to oversee functions and enable the smooth transition of Vijaya Bank’s services to Bank of Baroda.
Manimekhalai’s appointment comes at a time when there is a serious lack of female representation in the banking industry and the overall participation of women in the workforce is going down.
Had Manimekhalai not been appointed, there would have been no female public sector bank head as former Indian Bank MD and CEO Padmaja Chunduru’s term ended in August last year. The situation is no better in the private banking segment as no large private bank currently has a woman chief.
Foreign banks fare relatively better in the private space with Zarin Daruwala leading Standard Chartered Bank’s operations in India, Kaku Nakhate being president and country head, Bank of America, and Kalpana Morparia that of JPMorgan. Morparia retires later this year.
While Manimekhalai has reached the pinnacle of her career based on her years of professional performance and on merit, her appointment is a late but welcome step by the government towards increasing female participation at the leadership level in Indian banks.
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