Suparna Singh’s initial task at Essar was to evolve the Governance and Risk Management framework of the group and anchor the group think tank comprising its promoters and CEOs. Currently, she is focused on the Minerals business facilitation for Essar, covering India, USA and Africa. Ms Singh shared glimpses of her professional journey, achievements, her employer-friendly organisation, even some advice to Gen Y. Ms Singh is the younger of two siblings, her father is a chartered accountant and mother, a former school teacher. She completed her schooling from Vizag and Kolkata. An electrical engineer from Jadavpur University with a Masters in marketing from IIM Calcutta, Ms Singh is one of those rare women who shunned offers from the likes of Siemens and Phillips, preferring instead to join core-industry SAIL, which was her first stint on the shop-floor.
“I worked at the factory then. I decided to take it up as a challenge, choosing the tough path so that it would enable me to learn more,” she recollects.
Ms Singh has been successful in turning around a monolithic Telecommunications department into a thriving, state of the art technology centre, working with senior man agement personnel at Tata Steel, to creating corporate governance framework and risk management practices in the Essar group, facilitating decisions on strategy, target setting and policy.
By Mahalakshmi Hariharan
