Madhabi Puri-Buch has her task cut out at SEBI

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Editor's note: Exactly 11 years back, when Madhabi Puri-Buch quit the ICICI Group after a 15-year stint, it created ripples in Indian banking circles. Many called it the “end of an era”.  Puri-Buch was part of the so-called “fab six”—a group of six top women executives groomed by veteran banker K.V. Kamath. The other members of this group included Chanda Kochhar, Kalpana Morparia, Shikha Sharma, Lalita Gupte and Renuka Ramnath. In 2008, Kochhar was anointed as Kamath’s successor at ICICI Bank.  Executives who worked at ICICI Bank back then say that Kochhar clearly saw Puri-Buch as competition and wanted her out of the bank. She was made the CEO of ICICI Securities and eventually quit the group in February 2011. More than a decade later, Puri-Buch finds herself in the limelight when at least two of the “fab six” have made ignominious exits from their high-flying jobs. As the first woman to chair the Securities and Exchange Board of India, or SEBI, she ushers in a new era. She is, however, not new to SEBI, unlike most of her predecessors (almost always …