A CFO and a Trailblazer

The inspiring tale of Mrs Bindu A.L. who braved odds to reach the top of the corporate ladder at Manappuram Finance

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The story of Mrs Bindu A.L., the self-made CFO and President of Manappuram Finance, is awe-inspiring, to put it mildly. Born in Potta near Chalakudy in Kerala’s Thrissur, she was the second of peasant couple Lonappan and Rosily’s three children.

Education was not a priority for her dad, especially when it came to his girl child. He was trying to save enough to marry her off once she turned 18. “Luckily for me, there were a few teachers in our neighbourhood and I used to play with their children, so I drew inspiration to study by watching them,” she says. She surprised her teachers and neighbours by becoming the topper in her class in the lower divisions. “During harvest, my brother and I would take leave from school to help out mom. So, I knew that the choice was to study well and get a job or work in the paddy field,” she says.

Her lucky break came in the form of an Air Force job for her elder brother who assured her that she could go on studying to her heart’s content. Thus, she enrolled for predegree at the St Joseph’s College in the nearby town of Irinjalakuda.

She may have been one of the best performing students in her school but St Joseph’s attracted the cream of students from the district. “I could manage only the fourth group (commerce) with my marks. My wish was for the second group so that I could take up nursing later,” she says. Little did she know that inadvertently, she had made the best career choice of her life! Sister Rose Bastin, one of the teachers, assured the students that the fourth group was gaining in prominence and that they could later try for ‘CA’, a magical acronym that she was hearing for the first time. After clearing predegree in first class, she joined the Panampilly Memorial College nearer home for her BCom.