Chanda Kochhar

Chanda Kochhar is married to Deepak Kochhar and is residing in Mumbai. Deepak Kochhar is a wind energy entrepreneur and was her business schoolmate. The couple has two children, a daughter, Aarti, and a son, Arjun.

Chanda Kochhar was born on 17 November 1961, in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. Even though her birth place is Jodhpur, she was raised in Jaipur, Rajasthan.

She attended St. Angela Sophia School in Jaipur. Later, she moved to Mumbai and joined Jai Hind College to complete her bachelor’s degree. In 1982, she graduated and studied cost accountancy from Institute of Cost Accounts of India. Thereafter completed master’s degree in management studies from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies in Mumbai..

Chanda Kochhar joined the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI) as a management trainee in 1984. When she joined ICICI, she was handling project appraisal and was monitoring and evaluating projects in industries like textile, paper and cement.

In 1993, when the ICICI Bank was being set up, Chanda Kochhar was appointed as one of the core team members and granted major responsibilities.

In 1994, she got promoted to assistant general manager post, and then to deputy manager in 1996. In 1996, she was made head of the newly formed Infrastructure Industry Group of ICICI Bank which aimed to create industry expertise in areas of power, telecom and transportation.

In 1998, she was made the General Manager and the head of the ICICI Bank’s major client group, which handled relationships with ICICI’s top 200 clients.

In 1999, she found herself handling strategy and e-commerce divisions of ICICI bank. Her proficient leadership helped the bank in building the retail business and she focused more on important factors like technology, innovation, process engineering and expansion of distribution and scale.

In a society where very few women manage to reach the top rungs of the corporate ladder, Chanda Kochhar has broken the glass ceiling. She is leading the ICICI Bank since 2009 and under her leadership ICICI Bank won the "Best Retail Bank in India" award in 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2005.