Part 1: Kalpana Morparia on the culture of dissent, the 90-day NYSE race, and why ambition requires self-redundancy

About this episode

Kalpana Morparia discusses her remarkable career in banking, the culture of dissent at ICICI, and her views on work-life balance.

Hello, listeners, and welcome back to part 1 of the 51st episode of First Principles. Ms. Kalpana Morparia reached out to us via email after the bro-ification episode. It was the most pleasant surprise and we immediately knew we had to get her on the podcast. Here's someone who joined ICICI in 1975 as a lawyer, had absolutely no background in finance, and was then asked to run Treasury. She was terrified but her colleagues told her: " You do not say no to Mr. Kamath and live to have a great career in ICICI. " So she said yes and built one of the most remarkable careers in Indian banking. She talks about the ICICI culture where contradicting the chairman wasn't just allowed, it was encouraged. A senior JPMorgan executive once said the most impressive thing about ICICI was that " the junior-most person could contradict the chairman and get away with it. " She also gets candid about things most leaders don't talk about. Like why she wishes she had done an MBA. Why she has strong opinions about people's physical appearance at work and knows it's a flaw. Why her spiritual guru completely changed her relationship with the one thing she considered her biggest regret in life. She went to…

People in this episode

Guest: Kalpana Morparia

Topics covered

• banking
• leadership
• work culture
• career development
• personal growth

Keywords

• ICICI
• Kalpana Morparia
• banking
• leadership
• work-life balance
• career
• JPMorgan
• Ferrari

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: ICICI, JPMorgan, Ferrari

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