Meera Sanyal

Meera H Sanyal
Personal details
Born	(1961-10-15) 15 October 1961 Kochi, India
Residence	Mumbai, India

Meera Sanyal (née Meera Hiranandani, born 15 October 1961) is a banking professional in India,^[1] and a politician from Aam Aadmi Party.^[2] She contested as an independent candidate in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections from the Mumbai South constituency and lost. She is President of LiberalsIndia for Good Governance - the Indian Liberal group, a not for profit think tank, that provides a platform for like minded Indian Liberals and Active Citizens to work towards improving the quality of life and state of Governance in India.

Personal life

Meera is the daughter of Banu Hiranandani and late Admiral Gulab Mohanlal Hiranandani, a gallantry award winner, author of several publications on Indian Naval history, and a member of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). She is married to Ashish J Sanyal, Managing Director AMP Retail Services. She is the sister of Dr Manik Hiranandani.^{[citation needed]}

Meera is an MBA from INSEAD, France and was the class valedictorian for the 2006 Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers and graduated with a B.Com degree from Sydenham College, Mumbai. She studied at the Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai, Loreto Convent, Delhi and Fort Convent School, Mumbai.^{[citation needed]}

Professional life

Meera is one of India's leading Bankers, who announced her resignation from the post of CEO and Chairperson of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) India, to enter public life.^{[citation needed]}

In her banking career spanning 30 years, Meera worked with RBS for the past 6 years and with ABN AMRO Bank for 15 years. In 2001, she set up a company to provide global banking and technology services to ABN AMRO (now RBS) bank worldwide, which presently employs over 12,000 people in India. In 2005 she was appointed Chief Operations Officer for her bank in the Asia Pacific region heading 17 countries. As Head of the Investment bank, from 1992 to 1997 she was instrumental in financing core infrastructure development and telecom in India. Her prior experience was with Lazards and Grindlays Bank.^{[citation needed]}

Through the activities of the RBS Foundation, which Meera chairs, livelihood assistance has been provided to 75,000 households, with the aim of both alleviating poverty and conserving biodiversity (especially in endangered tiger habitats). Meera mentored the bank’s Micro Finance program that financed over 650,000 women in rural India.^{[citation needed]}

Meera is on the Board of PRADAN, a NGO that provides entrepreneurship skills to the poorest women in rural India.^{[citation needed]}

She is also on the international Board of Right to Play, a NGO that works with over one million children in more than 20 countries and uses the transformative power of play to educate and empower children facing adversity.^{[citation needed]}

In 2011, Meera was invited by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to join the International Council on Women's Business Leadership (ICWBL) and took an active role in the Leadership sub-committee for the empowerment of women.^{[citation needed]}

In recognition of her initiatives on Financial Inclusion & Sustainability, she has been appointed as a member of the National Executive Council of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), and chairs FICCI’s Financial Inclusion Committee. She is also a member of the National Councils for Banking & Finance, Public Policy and Women's safety of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) (CII).^{[citation needed]}

Meera serves on the Indian National Advisory Board of AIESEC, the world’s largest youth driven organization, and is also a Board Member of Jaihind College in Mumbai.^{[citation needed]}

Public Life

In 2009, Meera stood as an independent candidate from South Mumbai for the Lok Sabha elections. Her decision attracted national and international media attention. She Stood against two sitting MP's (Congress Petroleum Minister Murli Deora's son Milind and Shiv Sena's Mohan Rawale) and 18 other candidates. She lost the election.

Meera campaigned for Aam Aadmi Party for the Delhi state assembly elections, 2013.^[3]

Views on Politics

On being asked her reasons for this step, she stated that as a citizen of India and a resident of Mumbai, she had witnessed the steady decline of the city in spite of it being a treasure trove of talent and entrepreneurship. She said that she believed with good governance Mumbai could easily become the world class city that it has the potential to be. The 26/11 attackson Mumbai and the failure of the state to respond, made her take the decision to fight the 2009 General Elections from the constituency of South Mumbai. Meera believes that clean and competent candidates who care deeply about India, must take a stand, if we are to successfully free India from corruption, criminalisation and communalism. ^{[citation needed]}

Post the election, Meera resumed her Banking Career, while continuing with her work in Public Policy & Governance, Financial Inclusion & Women's empowerment.^{[citation needed]}

Over the past 4 years, she has travelled extensively through the states of Gujarat, Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Ladakh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, visiting over 120 villages, and living in the homes of the women who are the Foundation's beneficiaries.^{[citation needed]}

During her travels, Meera has spoken at many educational institutions throughout the country, including the IIT's, IIM's, ISB, BITS Pilani, and BHU amongst others, sharing her ideals with the students and interacting with them.^{[citation needed]}

In 2012, she travelled on the Jagriti Yatra, a 9000 km train journey around India, as a mentor to 450 young aspiring entrepreneurs.^{[citation needed]}

Meera has been invited to share her perspective at International forums on issues of Sustainable growth and Women's empowerment. She has addressed the Climate Summit in Copenhagen; seminars held by the Swedish Agency for Economic & Regional Growth; the Women of the Future summit in the UK, the Asian Institute of Finance Annual conclave in Kuala Lumpur and during the course of 2013 will be addressing Conferences in Tokyo and Abu Dhabi.^{[citation needed]}

Education

• AMP Advanced Management Program, Harvard Business School, Class Valedictorian October 2006 ^{[citation needed]}
• FCIB: Fellow Chartered Institute of Bankers, UK, February 1996 ^{[citation needed]}
• ACIB: Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers, UK, February 1989 ^{[citation needed]}
• MBA: INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France; Graduated with Honors on the Deans List December 1983 ^{[citation needed]}
• B. Com.: Sydenham College, Mumbai University; Graduated with distinction, ranked 7th in the University, May 1982 ^{[citation needed]}
• H.S.C.: A level equivalent Cathedral and John Connon School, Mumbai; Ranked 1st in school with distinction in all subjects April 1979 ^{[citation needed]}
• I.C.S.E.: O Level equivalent Loreto Convent, New Delhi; Ranked 1st in school and in the top 100 in India. December 1976 ^{[citation needed]}

Awards

• Philanthropist of the Year 2011 FICCI iCONGO Confederation of NGOs. ^{[citation needed]}

• Woman of Substance Award 2010 Rotary Club of India ^{[citation needed]}

• Karmaveer Puraskaar 2008 (Award for the best Corporate Executive Citizen) iCONGO Confederation of NGOs.^[4]

• Woman Banker of the Year 2006 Indian Merchants Chamber.^[5]

• AIESEC Hall of Fame Award AIESEC International Congress, Poland ^{[citation needed]}

References

v t e Aam Aadmi Party National Conveners Arvind Kejriwal (November 2012 - incumbent) National Executive (July 2013) Gopal Rai Kumar Vishwas Manish Sisodia Naveen Jaihind Pankaj Gupta Prashant Bhushan Sanjay Singh Shazia Ilmi Yogendra Yadav Spokespersons Ashutosh Dilip Kumar Pandey Others Medha Patkar Delhi MLA Akhilesh Pati Tripathi Ashok Kumar Chauhan Bandana Kumari Dharmender Singh Dinesh Mohaniya Girish Soni Harish Khanna Jagdeep Singh Jarnail Singh Madan Lal Mahinder Yadav Maninder Singh Dhir Manoj Kumar Prakash Jarwal Rajesh Garg Raju Dhingan Rakhi Birla Sanjeev Jha Santosh Koli Satyendra Kumar Jain Saurabh Bhardwaj Som Dutt Somnath Bharti Surinder Singh Veena Anand Vishesh Ravi Maharashtra Anjali Damania Mayank Gandhi Meera Sanyal Gujrat Mallika Sarabhai

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Meera Sanyal.

• India Today article
• Banking to Politics - The Hindu
• Sanctuary Awards 2008
• Boardroom to Ballot
• Admiral Hiranandani