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Chitra Ramkrishna Age, Boyfriend, Husband, Children, Family, Biography & More

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Age: 59 Years
Hometown: Chennai
Caste: Brahmin

Chitra Ramkrishna

Bio/Wiki
ProfessionChartered Accountant, Business Executive
Famous ForBeing the first woman Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the National Stock Exchange (NSE)
Physical Stats & More
Height (approx.)in centimeters- 170 cm
in meters- 1.70 m
in feet & inches- 5’ 7”
Eye ColourBlack
Hair ColourBlack
Career
Career Highlights• Managing Director and CEO of National Stock Exchange of India Ltd.
• Joint Managing Director of National Stock Exchange of India Ltd.
• Head of Listing and Deputy Managing Director of National Stock Exchange of India Ltd.
• Member of Derivatives Panel of Securities and Exchange Board of India
• Director of National Stock Exchange of India Ltd.
• Chairperson of Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur
• Member of Executive Committee of National Securities Depository Ltd.
• Promoter Director of Power Exchange India Limited
Awards, Honours, Achievements • 2014: CII EXIM Bank Business Excellence Award
• 2013: One of the four Indians among Fortune's list of '50 Most Powerful Women in Business'
Chitra Ramkrishna awarded the Most Powerful Women in Business award

• 2013: Recognized as the Forbes' 'Women Leader of the Year'
• 2011 and 2013: Named one of the 'Top 10 Women Business Leaders in India by Forbes
• Woman of the Year in the Business Leadership Awards by the Forbes Magazine
• Ranked 17th in the list of 'Top Global Women Business Leaders' by Fortune Magazine, USA
• Named the Second Most Powerful Businesswoman in India
• Featured in the list of 'Top 30 Women Achievers' by the Business Today Group for four successive years
Personal Life
Year of BirthYear, 1963
Age (as of 2023) 60 Years
BirthplaceBombay (now Mumbai)
NationalityIndian
HometownChennai
College/University• Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, UK [1]Hindustan Times
• Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), Delhi
• R.A. Podar College of Commerce and Economics, Mumbai
Educational Qualification [2]Auroras Journal of Management• Bachelor of Laws
• F.C.A. (Fellow Chartered Accountant)
• Chartered Accountant
• B.Com.
CasteUpper-caste Brahmin [3]Dawn
HobbiesListening Carnatic music, playing veena
Controversies• Reason behind resignation of Chitra: In 2016, it was speculated that the exit of Subramanian Anand, NSE’s group operating officer hired by her, had eventually led to the resignation of Ramkrishna. Reports stated that SEBI had received complaints of Anand drawing a high salary. It was alleged that such events and interference by the board members annoyed Chitra and created a rift between them. [4]Mint [5]The Economic Times

• NSE co-location case: On 4 July 2018, SEBI issued show-cause notices to NSE and 14 others entities, including the former MD Chitra Ramkrishna. In 2019, SEBI directed the National Stock Exchange to pay Rs. 625 crore with 12 percent per annum interest in the co-location case and barred the exchange from the securities market for six months. Along with it, the regulator also found the two former MDs of NSE - Ravi Narain and Chitra Ramkrishna, guilty in the case. It directed Ramkrishna to disgorge 25 per cent of her salary drawn for FY 2013-14, to the IPEF within 45 days. Both the accused were also prohibited from associating with a listed company or a market Infrastructure Institution or any other market intermediary for a period of five years and were probed. [6]The Economic Times[7]Moneycontrol

• Controversy on Chitra's high remuneration: During the last 8 months of the tenure as the MD and CEO of NSE, Chitra was paid an additional Rs. 23 crore. This drew attention of the finance ministry that ordered SEBI to look into the matter. In 2020, the regulator then imposed a penalty of Rs. 50 lakh on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). In clarification, NSE had said that it had recovered the remuneration amount paid to Ramkrishna. [8]Business Standard

• Sending confidential information to a faceless yogi: In February 2022, it was surfaced that she had been taking advise from an unidentified Himalayan yogi for the past twenty years during her stint as managing director and chief executive officer of the National Stock Exchange (NSE). According to SEBI, she also shared confidential information including business plans, board meeting agendas, and financial projections with the faceless yogi. SEBI fined her Rs. 30 million (£293,186; $396,975), banning her for three years from working with any stock excahange or any firm registered with the regulator as an intermediary. In a statemenet, SEBI said, "The sharing of financial and business plans of NSE... is a glaring, if not unimaginable, act that could shake the very foundations of the stock exchange." [9]BBC

• I-T Department raids: On 17 February 2022, the Income-Tax Department raided her premises on suspicion of tax evasion. The agency’s Mumbai unit carried out these searches after the SEBI, on 11 February 2022, levied penalties on her for violating rules while appointing Anand Subramanian as the group operating officer and advisor to the then managing director of the NSE. [10]The Hindu

• Arrested in co-location scam case: On 7 March 2022, the CBI arrested her and took her into a seven-day custody after a Delhi court ordered the agency to interrogate her in co-location scam case. Reportedly, Ms. Ramakrishna was evasive and had continuously misguided the Investigation Officer and gave wrong statements. [11]The Hindu

• CBI files chargesheet: After several rounds of questioning, the CBI filed a chargesheet against her on 21 April 2022 in the alleged co-location scam case. [12]The Hindu

• Penalised in 'dark fibre' case: On 28 June 2022, the SEBI imposed a penalty of Rs. 5 crore on Chitra Ramkrishna in the 'dark fibre' case; the regulator also imposed a penalty of Rs. 7 crore on NSE and Rs. 5 crore on Ravi Narain. [13]The Hindu

• Granted bail in a money laundering case: On 9 February 2023, the Delhi High Court granted her bail in a money laundering case, which was being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). Reportedly, she was involved in alleged illegal phone tapping of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) employees. [14]The Hindu
Relationships & More
Marital StatusMarried
Family
Husband/SpouseName not known
Money Factor
Salary (approx.)Rs. 44 crores (2013-2016 as MD and CEO of NSE) [15]Business Line
Chitra Ramkrishna

Some Lesser Known Facts About Chitra Ramkrishna

  • Chitra Ramkrishna is an Indian chartered accountant and business executive.
  • She is the first female (former) Managing Director and CEO of the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE). She is also the third woman to head an Exchange in the Asia-Pacific region. [16]Business Standard
  • Chitra comes from a family of accountants. Her father was a Chartered Accountant and her grandfather was a Cost Accountant. [17]Mint She said in an interview,

    So it looked like a good profession to look at and so I took up commerce, quite liked what I was doing, so I went into CA.”

  • Ramakrishna started her career as a chartered accountant and landed in the finance sector in 1985 when she joined the Project Finance Division of the Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI). Chitra then worked at the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) before returning to IDBI’s treasury desk in 1990. Chitra was a part of the team that drafted the legislative framework for the securities market regulator SEBI in 1987. [18]Mint [19]BusinessLine
  • Chitra has been with NSE since its inception in 1992 and has played her part in NSE’s explosive growth since then. While working with the Exchange, Ramkrishna started internet trading there in February 2000, taking leverage of the dot-com boom. [20]Forbes
  • The CA was one of the five handpicked people by the late S.S. Nadkarni, who was then IDBI Chairman. She was a part of the team to set up NSE from scratch and to create a screen-based pan-Indian stock exchange, which was operational in 1994.  [21]BusinessLine
  • At NSE, her key initiatives include setting up a pan-India VSAT network, building the infrastructure and legislative framework for India’s first depositor, providing trading access to retail investors located across the country, ensuring continuous cost leadership, and creating a technological stronghold that is scalable and secure. [22]Business Standard [23]Capital Finance International
  • After 20 years of her stint at the NSE, Chitra took charge of the Exchange on 1 April 2013 as its MD and CEO. The NSE is now among one of the top three exchanges in the index and stock derivatives and ranks as the world’s largest exchange in cash market trades.
  • Under her leadership, NSE became a transparent market ecosystem – reaching more than 1,500 locations in India and recorded a profit of Rs. 860 crores in 2011. The Exchange launched products including futures and options, currency, exchange-traded funds, global indices like the S&P 500, and a dedicated debt platform to encourage retail investors to trade in corporate bonds. The exchange administrator was also instrumental in roping in investors like NYSE, Goldman Sachs, Temasek, and  General Atlantic for NSE. [24]Auroras Journal of Management [25]Capital Finance International

  • As NSE’s CEO and MD, Chitra became the highest-paid executive among salaried women in the financial year 2015-16, surpassing other top female executives like Shikha Sharma, Chanda Kochhar, and Arundhati Bhattacharya. [26]Business Standard
  • In November 2016, Chitra was named the new chairperson of the World Federation of Exchanges at the annual meeting in Cartagena, Colombia.
  • On 2 December 2016, Ramkrishna resigned from the National Stock Exchange as CEO and MD with immediate effect, citing “personal reasons.” She resigned months before the launch of keenly awaited, one of the largest IPOs in the market. Her tenure was supposed to end in March 2018. [27]NDTV
  • With over two decades of experience, Ms Ramkrishna sits on several SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) committees on different policy issues, including the Secondary Market Advisory Committee and the Committee on Disclosures and Accounting Standards.  She has also been actively engaged in many important committees of industry bodies like the CII (Confederation of Indian Industry), National Council on Financial Sector Development, and the FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) National Executive Committee and its Capital Markets Committee. She was also on the committee on financial sector reforms in 2008, which was headed by Raghuram Rajan. [28]Capital Finance International
  • In 2018, Chitra Ramkrishna joined the Board of Maveric Systems as its Independent Director. [29]Dataquest

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