Chitra Ramkrishna is set to become the first female head of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in its nearly 20-year history of operations as a bourse.
On Monday, Ramkrishna will take over the reins of NSE, the country’s largest bourse by daily turnover and number of trades, as its Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Ravi Narain, who has been Managing Director and CEO since 2000, has relinquished this post, but will continue to guide NSE as its Non-executive Vice-Chairman. Ramkrishna, a chartered accountant and currently Joint Managing Director of the exchange, has been associated with NSE in a leadership position since its inception in 1991. She was part of the core five-member team selected by the Government in the early nineties to create a screen-based pan-Indian stock exchange.
Both Narain and Ramkrishna were hand-picked from IDBI by R.H.Patil, the first Managing Director of NSE, to set up the stock exchange.
Prior to joining NSE, Ramkrishna was part of the project finance division of Industrial Development Bank of India.
She was selected to the post of Managing Director and CEO by the NSE Board in November last year for a period of five years with effect from April 1, 2013.
Starting from scratch in the derivatives segment in 2000, NSE is today one among the top three global exchanges in derivatives trading.
Ramkrishna is also the CEO of the National Settlement and Clearing Corporation and is on the board of NSE’s subsidiaries IISL and Dotex.