New Highs

Radhika Gupta is the only woman CEO in a mutual fund industry with 44 fund houses. She has managed to almost double the assets under management (AUM) of Edelweiss Asset Management Ltd. to Rs 20,000 crore (including assets under alternative investment fund and portfolio management service) in over two years.

Though she took over as CEO in February 2017, she had joined the Edelweiss group in 2014 after it acquired Forefront Capital Management, an alternative asset management company that Gupta had co-founded. Under her leadership, Edelweiss has acquired JP Morgan Mutual fund and Ambit Capital's AIF business. "Before the JP Morgan merger, we were ranked 36 in terms of AUM," she says.

The fund house has got the mandate to launch India's first debt exchange traded fund (ETF). "It is one of the biggest achievements as the other two mandates are by very large AMCs - Reliance and ICICI Prudential. For a younger entrant to win the mandate for the government's debt ETF and launch India's first debt ETF, is a significant win," she says.

A passionate writer, Gupta has always believed in doing something different or doing things differently. This is what she advised her team to do when she joined Edelweiss AMC. "I told my team to believe that they are the best and think differently in the way they work, in events, marketing launches and communication with people. Chasing the No.1 or 2 player will take you nowhere. This has worked for us. The number of people who work with us in terms of active distributors has gone up to around 3,000," says Gupta.

Being in an industry in India where there are very few senior women professionals, has both advantages and disadvantages but Gupta believes that one should look at the brighter side of it (a thought Gupta explains further is her popular video Girl With a Broken Neck).

"I think being different has helped me and in this industry, if you have potential, people do take care of you," she says.