Who is Madhabi Puri Buch, first woman chairperson of SEBI?

The government of India on Monday appointed Madhabi Puri
Buch as the new chairperson of the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
She is the first woman chairperson of the market regulator SEBI. She has held
several top positions in the private sector, including at ICICI Bank.

Buch, 56, will take the charge on March 1 replacing Ajay
Tyagi as his tenure ends on February 28. She will hold the top position of the
capital markets regulator for three years.

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An alumna of IIM Ahmedabad will be the first woman to
head the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). According to her
LinkedIn profile, she has done her schooling at Fort Convent in Mumbai and
Convent of Jesus and Mary in Delhi. She completed her graduation in Mathematics
from St Stephen’s College, New Delhi.

She served as a Whole Time Member of SEBI from 2017 to
October 2021, after which she was named as the head of the regulator’s
secondary market committee in December 2021. She had handled several portfolios
during her tenure at SEBI and was involved in numerous committees as well. She
headed the advisory committee on market data that suggests policy measures in
areas like securities market data access and privacy.

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Buch has more than three decades of experience in the
financial markets. She started her career in 1989 with ICICI Bank. She worked
with ICICI Group for more than 17 years and was part of ICICI Bank, ICICI
Securities, ICICI Web Trade Ltd and ICICI HFC Ltd. In February 2009, Buch was
appointed the Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Securities, she headed the firm
for two years till May 2011.

She was among the corporate leaders who were holed up in
a Mumbai hotel during the 26/11 terror attacks in November 2008. She had a
brief stint with the New Development Bank, set up by the BRICS bloc of nations.
Later, she was appointed the Head of Business Development at Greater Pacific
Capital, Singapore from 2011 to 2013.

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Besides, Buch has held non-executive director roles in
several organisations, including Idea Cellular, Max Healthcare, Zansar
Technologies, Innoven Capital, and Gabelhorn Investments.

She will replace Ajay Tyagi, a 1984 batch IAS officer of
the Himachal Pradesh cadre. He was appointed as SEBI chairperson on March 1,
2017, for three years. Subsequently, he was given a six-month extension and
later in August 2020, his tenure was extended by 18 months.