Aim for the sky, but move slowly, enjoying every step along the way. It is all those little steps that make the journey complete.
Chanda Kochhar
Thankfully I have an ecosystem of in-laws, parents and husband, who are my rocks.
To reap this demographic dividend, we need to enable the youth to acquire skills required to get the job or become self-employed.
I believe in fate, but I also believe that hard work and diligence plays a very important role in our lives.
Adaptability is a great asset to have because life is so unpredictable, and things can change overnight for any of us.
Take destiny in your own hands.
It is crucial to bridge the critical gap between manpower availability and employability by providing sustainable livelihood opportunities for all to grow and prosper.
While working hard for my career, I looked after my family and have been there for my mother and in-laws when they needed me around. They reciprocated in kind with their unconditional love and support for my career.
Don't cut corners or compromise to achieve your dreams.
You can maintain work-life balance even while pursuing careers.
Innovation is a necessity.
Even if it does not become cashless economy, it will become a less cash economy, and I think that itself is going to be a good and big achievement, and I think we are, as a country, gone through many of large changes, and ICICI has been a leader in many of them.
The growth that we are targeting for our bank is in line with the banking industry.
I was good with numbers.
All my challenges have become opportunities.
Payments banks can also act as business correspondents of other banks.
As far as investors and customers are concerned, I make it a point to answer each and every piece of mail that comes to me.
Power projects are differently placed to road projects. There's difference stress across different companies across different groups based on their leverage levels.
Getting small things like Visa or driving licence should be made easier as we, in financial service sectors, are dealing with financial regulations and tax constraints.
Any of our businesses will not exist in the form that is today, will not exist in the same form one year later, two years later... We have to worry about the disruptions in the business models and the practices.
We believe that rural India is going to be the next driver of growth. You cannot make money overnight there, as you have to set up infrastructure there; the value of transactions is lower - you need a few years before you can really make all those businesses profitable.
It's very important to have the comfort of the regulator in every geography where you operate.
If there is a course that is quant-oriented, you need to focus on that, but if it is a course that is more general management-oriented, do you not need entrance examinations which are more all round?
What is important for a leader is that you walk in a stable manner in your own shoes and do not trip.
It's not that the regulator doesn't want the banking industry to grow. The growth of the industry has always been in relation to the GDP (gross domestic product) growth.
What women need are not benefits and advantages but a merit-based selection process that will allow them to automatically benefit from various opportunities.
What's important is that we see each year what the opportunities are, and make use of the opportunity.
We believe the new banks will complement the existing banking system, and there will be opportunities for players to identify mutually beneficial partnerships.
If you take existing ideas and make them affordable and scalable, you substantially change business models.
When I moved from consumer banking to international banking, I thought I brought a lot of insights from India we could implement globally.
I had to work just as hard as my male colleagues.
I think it's important to celebrate your successes. It's important to feel happy about them, but it's equally important to look forward to the next big move.
We have to always set an aspiration for ourselves and then strive to get there.
You have to handle the challenges and emerge stronger from them, rather than allow them to bog you down.
I thought work and family complete life. Aarti's enthusiasm and energy levels made me realise that life can be even more wholesome and fuller.
Business models that are relevant today are not relevant tomorrow and were not in existence yesterday.
It is important always to make full use of opportunities that come your way, and at the same time, it is important to not just cope with the challenges but try and convert each challenge into an opportunity.
Lending has come back in retail; it has come back in working capital. It has also come back in other forms, like government contract being given out to companies.
I was only a young girl of 13 when my father passed away from a sudden heart attack, leaving us unprepared to take on life without him. We had been protected from life's challenges so far. But without warning, all that changed overnight.
Make sure you have that conviction to do what you know is right, and once you have it, don't let skeptics distract you from your path.
Mark-to-market losses are not real loss. It's a notional loss. What we can monitor is the credit quality of the underlying papers. Are the companies paying interest on time? Is there any deterioration in the credit quality of these companies?
The global market does not understand the India risk as well as we do, and therefore, we have the arbitrage facility of making better margin on the same set of Indian firms than what we would have made by giving rupee loans.
Over the years, we have financed projects in core industrial sectors like steel, cement, aluminium and petrochemicals, and in manufacturing sectors like automobiles and textiles.
Life comprises of both: opportunities as well as challenges.
She worked hard till she saw all of us through college and we became independent. I never knew that my mother had such a wealth of self-assurance and belief within her.
Normally, we define banks as being either retail or corporate, but ICICI transformed itself from a corporate bank into a retail bank and, now, a universal bank.
I think competition is good. It finally delivers the best value to the customer, and I think it keeps all the players on their toes.
Practise and practise to make your dreams turn into reality.
I always believe that, as you start out, while you should have a big dream - a big goal - but it's also important to move step by step. So, you know, frankly, if you ask me, when I started as a management trainee in 1984, I don't know that I really thought that I would become the CEO.
Clearly, for an organization to move on, it is the job of the leader to be that sponge that takes the stress from inside and the outside.
