Anusha Ananthachari Sreenivasan

As a kid, she grew up around Dad’s firm, and one day began to lead it.

The Society of Auditors (1932) predates the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (1949). If the cookie crumbles the right way, its incumbent secretary could become its first woman president. Should that happen, Anusha Sreenivasan would break a glass ceiling in the 87- year history of the Chennai headquartered Society. While no woman is within earshot of presiding the destiny of ICAI, the Society has it in it to anoint the daughter of one of its past presidents, as head, in the first step towards serious gender parity in the accounting profession.

In one sense, Anusha has already created history. She heads one of the oldest accounting firms of the south. Now in her mid-forties, she is a senior lead partner at the 68-year-old D Rangaswamy & Co. Currently, a majority-woman CA partnership firm, this place was where first her father and later both she and her husband did their internship. She says, “This is not, and was never intended to be a family house.”

In one sense, she is right. For the next 25 years, no lineal descendant will make the cut, as neither of her children is into accounting. Her elder son, an engineer from IIT, is set to do his masters in Artificial Intelligence while the younger one has taken his board exam and is in the science stream.

Anusha strikes a reasonable balance between work and home. It’s not an easy job for anyone, and more so for moms. In India, the mantle of bringing up children lies with the mother. “One hundred percent support from family,” has helped the super-lady stay focused. She is never at home between 10 am and 5 pm, with ‘office’ taking up that time. This is not ‘now’ when she is the senior most partner but has always been so from the time she stepped into the firm. “Dad” had made it clear that if she was to strike in a man’s world, she should work harder than men. Today, D Rangaswamy & Co. has five stakeholders: “CA-articles senior Usha, Friend Janani, Banker Santhanam, Husband Sreenivasan, and myself. While I am the senior most partner, I am still the youngest!”

Let’s walk her journey, down the memory’s lane.