For Anuranjita Kumar, the new country head of Citi India's human resource division, family has always been the priority. She quit her job with consumer major Procter & Gamble to avoid any conflict with her husband who at that time was working with rival Unilever.
"I was more employable than him," she jokes but insists that her husband has been equally supportive. When Kumar moved to London in 2005, it was her husband's turn to return the favour, which he did by changing his job.
But ever since she quit P&G in 1995, Kumar has been with Citi leading a variety of human resource initiatives across geographies.
Kumar was part of the team that advised on some of the key initiatives taken by Citi in Central and Eastern Europe, West Asia and Africa. She then became the head of compensation and benefits for India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and also had a short stint in New York.
Kumar went to London as the head of human resource strategy and planning for Europe, West Asia and Africa. In 2007, she was appointed as the head of human resource for global banking business in these regions. She partnered business heads and helped them formulate key human resource strategies during the global financial crisis.
"I'm married to Citi as long as I'm married to my husband. This organisation and its employees always support each other. My overseas stint was defining and I gained a lot of experience. I saw history in the making. Two of my next door banks (Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns) collapsed," Kumar said.
A management graduate from XLRI, Kumar prefers to spend time with her children when she is not working. For this she has to travel frequently to Delhi where her children are studying.
