‘Only girl who pulled out of placement’ from IIM-A is now SEBI chief. B-school says she ‘rewrote the rules’
When SEBI Chief Madhabi Puri Buch pulled out of IIM-A placement, the college wished her luck and hoped that she would find the job she was looking for.
Madhabi Puri Buch, the current chairperson of the Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI), scripted history by becoming the first woman to lead the organisation. She graduated from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad in 1988, where she was the only female student to pull out of the placement process. At that time, the college wished her luck and hoped that she would find the job she was looking for. Over three decades later, she returned to her alma mater as the Chief Guest for the 59th Convocation, and the B-school shared a post on X in her honour with anecdotes about her time at the institution.
Read| Sebi chief Madhabi Puri Buch says her IIM-A days were like ‘a pressure cooker’: ‘Felt locked’
“This month’s #IIMAArchives spotlight celebrates Ms Madhabi Puri Buch, a 1988 IIMA alumna who rewrote the rules. Choosing her own path over placement, she made history as SEBI's first female chairperson,” wrote IIM Ahmedabad, along with a creative on X.
The creative mentions the text from the IIMA Student Yearbook, 1987-88. It reads, “Madbhai Puri Buch morning invariably begins with a call from home after which she goes about zapping the academics scene in her own neat, organised way. This I-schol doesn’t stop at excelling in academics but also enjoys debating, elocuting and amateur dramatics - when she is on campus. Friday evenings, inevitably find Mad rushing off to Bombay. The only girl who’s pulled out of placement. We hope she finds just the job she is looking for. Good luck, Mad!”
Take a look at the post shared by IIM Ahmedabad here:
At the convocation, she said, “I’m not only a difficult boss to work with, but also an impossible subordinate to work with because I just won’t give up until a problem has been dissected to the last degree, I will not give up. Colleagues often tell me that the problem-solving with me is like peeling an onion, it makes everybody cry in the process. But, by the time you’re done peeling layer after layer after layer of the onion, you suddenly realise that there’s no problem left.”
Madhabi Puri Buch: Career
After completing her graduation from IIM-A, Buch began working as a social worker with Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN). Later, she joined ICICI Bank as a Finance Analyst and worked there from 1989 to 1992, followed by a position as a Lecturer at West Cheshire College in the United Kingdom from 1993 to 1995.
She also worked as a Market Research Consultant with ORG-MARG for a year. From 1997 to 2009, she held various roles at ICICI Bank and eventually became the Executive Director. She then served as the CEO of ICICI Securities from 2009 to 2011.
For the next three years, she headed the Singapore office of the Private Equity Firm Greater Pacific Capital. In 2016, worked as a Consultant to the New Development Bank (NDB) in Shanghai.
She also served as a non-executive director on the Boards of various companies and as a Whole Time Member of SEBI from 2017 to 2021 before assuming her current role as Chairperson of SEBI in March 2022.
