ONGC appoints Alka Mittal as company's first ever female Chairman & MD

Alka Mittal, the Director for Human Resources (HR) at Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has been given the additional charge as the public sector undertaking’s Chairman and Managing Director (CMD).

This late-night development comes two days after Subhash Kumar, the Director (Finance) who was holding additional charge of CMD, superannuated on December 31, 2021.

She was the senior-most ONGC Board Member after Kumar’s retirement. She joined the ONGC Board on November 27, 2018 and was the first woman to hold the charge of a full-time Director in ONGC’s history.

Kumar’s superannuation on Friday evening had left ONGC without a head over the weekend since no one was announced as his successor by the Appointments Committee of Cabinet or by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. The post of CMD was held by him as an additional responsibility from April 1, 2021 after Shashi Shankar, the last full time CMD of the company, retired on March 31, 2021.

ONGC is managed by the Board of Directors, which formulates strategies, policies and reviews its performance periodically. The Chairman & Managing Director (CMD) and Six Whole-Time Directors, namely Director (Onshore), Director (Technology & Field Services), Director (Finance), Director (Offshore), Director (Exploration) and Director (Human Resource), manage the day-to-day business affairs of the Company under the overall supervision, control and guidance of the Board.

The post of Director (Finance) is presently vacant on the ONGC board.

Mittal is a post graduate in Economics, MBA (HRM) and Doctorate in Commerce and Business Studies, she joined ONGC as a Graduate Trainee in 1985. Prior to joining as Director (HR), she held the post of Chief Skill Development (CSD) of the company.

“In her capacity as CSD she streamlined the activities and brought in uniformity in the working of the Skill Development Centres of ONGC. During this period, she has also implemented the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS) in ONGC engaging more than 5000 apprentices across all work centres,” Mittal’s profile on the ONGC website said.