Madhabi Puri Buch was speaking at the annual meeting of IIM Ahmedabad.
Madhabi Puri Buch, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), said she has a “long list of colleagues” who find it very difficult to work with her. Ms Buch, the first woman to head the stock market regulator, was speaking at the annual meeting of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad on Saturday.
Ms Buch, who was invited as chief guest at the convocation ceremony, told the students: “I have a long list of colleagues and bosses who will testify to the fact that not only am I a very difficult boss to work with, with only an almost impossible subordinate to work with, because I just don’t give up. Until a problem is completely dissected, I will not give up.”
Explaining why her colleagues feel this way, the SEBI chief said, “My colleagues often tell me that solving problems with me is like peeling an onion. It makes everyone cry in the process. But by the time you finish peeling layer after layer after layer of the onion, you suddenly realize there’s no problem anymore.”
Ms. Buch also said she sticks to the mantra of doing what is right, “no matter how difficult.” She said she leaves no stone unturned, no matter how difficult the problem is.
She added, “I believe my mantra on a conscious and subconscious level has been very, very simple. Do what is right, no matter how difficult. Leave no stone unturned, no matter how difficult. The great thing about this mantra is that eight times out of ten you will actually succeed. And the two times you don’t, you have absolutely no regrets.”
She explained that each graduate would discover their own guiding mantra, which would serve as their innate “default setting” to effortlessly follow their path.
“And until you find that mantra, it’s like having a quiver full of arrows, some sharp, some not so sharp. And as you pursue the goals you choose, you may find that your sharpened arrows were perfectly fine, beautiful, or that you need to sharpen some of your arrows,” Ms. Buch added.