Tough-talking Puri Buch broke several barriers

Mumbai: In 2022, when Madhabi Puri Buch took charge as Sebi chairperson, she broke several barriers – primary of them being the first woman and the first former private sector professional to head the markets’ regulatory body. After a four-and-half-year stint as a whole-time member at Sebi, she had taken a few months off due to personal reasons but in March 2022 came back to head it.At Sebi, Puri Buch, a tough taskmaster, is known for bringing in a collaborative practice in decision-making, especially in putting in place new rules for the regulated entities. She also put strong focus on IT in market regulation and surveillance. In addition, she’s known for her data-driven approach to management and decision making.

Unlike many of her predecessors, the 59-year-old has not shied away from publicly flagging concerns, be it those related to futures and options or valuation of SMEs. Besides, she has initiated fresh changes in regulating mutual funds and used technology cracked down on market manipulators.Before Sebi, Puri Buch – a graduate of in maths from St Stephen’s College with an MBA degree from IIM Ahmedabad – had a long innings at ICICI Bank and at one point was identified as one of the women leaders at the private sector lender. She was among those recruited from top business schools just before the 1991 economic reforms that also transformed the financial sector in India.From IIM-A’s 1989 batch she has several prominent batchmates, including Rasesh Shah, chairman of Edelweiss; Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder of Naukri.com; Nirmal Jain, CEO of India Infoline; Rahul Bhasin, managing partner at Baring Private Equity and Vedika Bhandarkar, former Credit Suisse CEO, who now heads Water.org founded by Matt Damon.India’s economic reforms gave ICICI an opportunity to break out into multiple new financial services that opened up for the first time. Puri Buch was among the young management graduates to take leadership positions in the new housing finance unit.Much of Buch’s character was shaped by her early years at ICICI, where she gained foundational experience in retail finance and an understanding of technology in the financial sector. The ICICI environment instilled in her a strong drive for getting things done.She later went on to head ICICI Securities after the global financial crisis.In 2011, Puri Buch moved to Singapore to head business development at Greater Pacific Capital. The shift was because her husband Dhaval Buch had just moved there as a senior leader in the multinational supply chain vertical as part of Harish Manwani’s team.Dhaval An HUL Veteran: Dhaval is an alumnus of IIT Delhi and has had a corporate career of 35 years in Hindustan Unilever in India and then in Unilever globally as part of its senior management team.Currently, he is a senior advisor at Blackstone and Alvarez & Marsal. He’s also a non-executive director at sports apparel brand Gildan. With over 30 years of experience in supply chain management, primarily at Unilever, he also had brief roles at Mahindra & Mahindra before co-founding the financial services consulting firm Agora Advisory with his wife in 2013.Blackstone sources said that Buch’s appointment at the India unit of the US-based buyout fund pre-dates Madhabi’s appointment as Sebi chief in 2022. Buch was appointed as a senior advisor of Blackstone in 2019. Dhaval didn’t have any private equity experience before Blackstone as he had spent a good part of his career in procurement and supply chain. At Blackstone, Buch exclusively advises private equity companies across Asia on procurement and supply chain related topics, which is his area of expertise.