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By:

Divyaa Advaani 

2 November 2024 at 8:58:38 am

She Knew In Three Lines

She knew within the first three lines. The message was polished, well-structured, and covered all the right points. But there was something about it the cadence, the phrasing, the absence of anything specific to their previous conversation that felt assembled rather than written. She read it twice. And then she made a quiet decision. Not a dramatic one. Not an angry one. Just a small, irreversible recalibration about who this person actually was and whether she wanted to continue the...

She Knew In Three Lines

She knew within the first three lines. The message was polished, well-structured, and covered all the right points. But there was something about it the cadence, the phrasing, the absence of anything specific to their previous conversation that felt assembled rather than written. She read it twice. And then she made a quiet decision. Not a dramatic one. Not an angry one. Just a small, irreversible recalibration about who this person actually was and whether she wanted to continue the conversation. She never said a word. She simply moved on. This is happening in boardrooms, inboxes and WhatsApp threads across every industry right now. Founders who have handed their voice entirely to an algorithm and called it efficiency. Responses that arrive with perfect grammar and zero personality. Follow-ups that reference nothing specific from the last conversation. Proposals that could have been written for anyone. And on the other side of every one of these interactions, a human being who notices even if they cannot immediately name what feels off that there is nobody home. AI is not the problem. Let that be said clearly and without ambiguity. The founders who are using AI well as a thinking partner, a drafting tool, a research assistant are gaining a real and meaningful advantage. The problem is the founder who has outsourced their presence entirely. Who lets the algorithm speak on their behalf without adding a single word of their own. Who has confused efficiency with identity and does not yet understand that they are not the same thing. Here is the personal branding consequence that almost nobody is talking about honestly. When you let AI represent you without your voice running through it, you are not saving time. You are erasing yourself. The warmth, the specificity, the particular way you think and respond and engage — these are not decorative qualities. They are the substance of your personal brand. They are what makes someone choose you over the equally qualified person they also met last week. Strip them out and you have not streamlined your communication. You have quietly removed the reason someone would want to communicate with you specifically. Deals are being lost this way every single day. Not loudly. Not with feedback. Just quietly, in the moment someone reads a message and feels the complete absence of a person behind it. They do not reply with "this feels AI generated." They simply stop replying. And the founder never connects the silence to the message that caused it. The most powerful personal brands I work with use AI the way a skilled writer uses an editor — to sharpen what is already there, never to replace what never showed up. They use it to organise their thinking, improve their structure, catch what they missed. And then they put themselves back into it. One specific observation. One genuine reaction. One sentence that could only have come from someone who was actually present and paying attention. That one sentence is the difference between a message that converts and one that gets filed under "probably AI, move on." You cannot build a human brand through a machine. You can use the machine to build faster but the human must always be driving. Always thinking. Always present enough in every message, every response, every interaction to remind the person on the other side that there is a real person here who sees them, values them and chose to engage with them specifically. That is not a workflow. That is a brand. If this landed somewhere uncomfortable, a Founder Brand Audit is a focused consultation call where we examine what your brand is currently communicating and where the human has quietly gone missing from it. This is a specific and intentional investment in yourself, not a free conversation. Five slots open each week. Book your call here: https://www.calendly.com/divyaaadvaani/founder-brand-audit (The author is a personal branding expert. She has clients from 14+ countries. Views personal.)

Lateral upgrade to ailing annihilation

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

Lateral upgrade to ailing annihilation

Being the first person from the private sector to be appointed as chairperson of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) as part of the government’s lateral initiative, Madhabi Puri Buch also holds the honour of being the first woman to hold the top post as capital market regulator.

But the laurels that the former private sector banker enjoyed in her earlier stint with ICICI Bank, was marred with allegations that she and her husband were having a stake in offshore entities, which were used to artificially inflate shares of Adani group companies.

Terming the allegation as `character assassination, Buch clarified that all disclosures have already been furnished and the fund in question did not invest in any securities involving the Adani group.

When it rains, it pours. This allegation was subsequently followed by Congress Party allegation that Buch had received salary and post-retirement benefits from ICICI Bank after she quit the private sector bank.

In its clarification to the stock exchanges, ICICI Bank asserted that the payments made to Buch were purely retirement benefits after her exit from the bank and they were neither salary nor employee stock options.

Prior to these allegations, Buch tenure at SEBI was all about bringing in quick reforms on operational issues by changing the format of consultation paper to bring in larger responses digitally. Being data savvy, the rationale of her decisions were democratic based on big data analysis derived from the responses received to the consultation papers.

Further she bifurcated the duties of the SEBI staff between operations and enforcement, which were done by the same persons earlier. Having worked for the private sector in the capital market domain space, Buch had a better understanding of the subject compared to officers from the administrative service in the past that reflected even in her orders as a whole-time director at SEBI before becoming the chairperson. As a whole time director at SEBI, her orders on adjudication issues were more directional to the capital market space, according to experts in the compliance space. She was also quick to revamp the old provisions of the 90s at SEBI.

Being tech and data savvy, Buch enhanced regulatory surveillance and detection of market manipulation, insider trading and fraud while also emphasizing on strengthening corporate governance by introducing stricter rules for independent directors and enhancing disclosures for related-party transactions.

To put in perspective, the annual report of the capital market regulator in the just concluded financial year revealed that the number of investigations related to insider trading jumped to 175 in 2023-24 from 85 in the preceding year while probes related to front running jumped over three times to 83 from 24 in the preceding year.

Transparency in mutual funds by implementing measures to protect retail investors along with tightening norms for initial public offers, particularly in the SME platforms were some of her other positive initiatives including confirmation of denial of any market rumours within 24 hours for the top 100 listed companies which will be extended to top 250 companies from December 1. However increased transparency and compliance with tightening regulations led to increased operational costs for the market participants and hence faced resistance from certain quarters. Born in 1966, Buch completed her primary education in Mumbai and graduated with specialization in Mathematics from Delhi and later obtained a management degree from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. In between, she got engaged to Dhawal Buch, a director at a consumer goods multinational at the age of eighteen and got married at the age of 21.

Besides ICICI Bank, Buch also worked as a lecturer at a college in England, worked at Greater Pacific Capital in Singapore and ICICI Securities as its CEO. She also worked as executive director on several private sector companies and as a consultant for New Development Bank (Brics Bank).

What now remains to be seen, is whether Buch, who survived the 26/11 terror attack when she along with her husband, was attending a meeting at Taj, be able to overcome the current ordeal. Keeping fingers crossed for the times to come.

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