This Woman Helped Build A New Indian Stock Exchange. Now She Runs It

It’s rare that a woman runs a stock exchange -- there are just three in the world. Even rarer to find one who was chosen 23 years ago for the crack team that created it and then climbed the ranks to become its chief executive officer in traditionally patriarchal India.

Chitra Ramkrishna, 52 and head of the National Stock Exchange of India, wants to retain the startup culture of her early days that helped grow the NSE into the world’s third-largest bourse by number of trades and the leader in India with an 82 percent market share that dwarfs the 140-year-old Bombay Stock Exchange, or BSE. When the NSE needs something new, it creates a team: Currency trading, bond futures and exchange-traded funds are the fruits so far. Another team is now working on bond innovations to go beyond the current 10-year product.