When Punita Kumar-Sinha graduated from The Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, as a chemical engineer in 1985, she was aghast to discover that many companies did not want women engineers. Several would openly say that women need not apply.
"I carved out a career on my own," she says. That is why she finds it baffling to hear sometimes that her father-in-law Yashwant Sinha's position in politics and government helped her career.
She met the former finance minister's son, Jayant, at IIT and they got married in 1986. Around the time that they got married, Yashwant Sinha was somewhat drifting on the political waters. He had quit the Indian Administrative Service to pursue a career in politics, and promptly lost the elections.
"When I got married, my in-laws had no money to finance our wedding," she says. In any case, she was not living with her in-laws in India. "Who really cares about a politician's daughter-in-law? Maybe their sons or daughters would have influence. But a daughter-in-law? Probably, very little! It was not like I was living in India and running the household here. I was away, far away."
That far away place was the US, where she moved to build a career in the world of finance and investment (Jayant was climbing the ladders at McKinsey & Co). Over there, she had to fight another perception; in addition to being a woman, she was also an Indian.
"Perceptions have dogged me wherever I have gone, even in the US, the land of equality and opportunity. I understand that. There are biases in every society."
That has made her firm in her opinion that women have it harder. The relationships they build in their profession are more formal.
For men, if they get along, it sooner or later becomes a boys' club, with frequent rounds of golf and other networking events. Not so with women. "Yet such networks are very important for women as well, because women like men need to get their name out and known."
Despite having won The Lipper recognition for her performance as the best performing closed-end fund (including all categories, not just India), she still finds it challenging to raise money. According to her, the rigours and sentiments of the profession are such that women have to work harder at building relationships, raising money and closing deals.
She thinks herself lucky that she often found people who helped her along the way. She has enjoyed the support of an all-male board of directors in crucial decisions. It helped that many of the directors were academicians or foreign policy experts.
Image: Skyline of Boston. (Inset) Punita Kumar-Sinha | Photograph: Courtesy, Ministry of External Affairs
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