Bias in the mirror
The assumption Bhattacharya had to confront was her own. After navigating a male-dominated institution and becoming SBI’s first woman chairperson, she believed her experiences meant she would be unlikely to harbour unconscious gender bias. Training at Salesforce proved otherwise.“I found that I had an unconscious bias myself,” she said. While assessing candidates, Bhattacharya realised she could ask different questions depending on whether the person in front of her was a man or a woman.
“That shouldn’t be the case,” she said. Candidates, irrespective of gender, should get the same opportunity.
For a small-town girl who rose to the corner office of India’s largest public-sector bank, those admissions offer a counterpoint to the more familiar story of an indomitable climb. Bhattacharya’s journey is also about learning to question assumptions—about why women hold back, what younger workers want and, perhaps most unexpectedly, the biases a leader can carry without knowing it.
Why women wouldn’t go to work in rural and semi-rural branches
At SBI, Bhattacharya once wondered why women officers were not taking rural assignments that were important for career advancement. She assumed they were reluctant. A woman colleague told her she had got it wrong.
The problem was more basic: suitable accommodation. In many places, a single woman could not easily find somewhere to stay. SBI responded by arranging accommodation at a central location, along with a mess, allowing women to undertake rural postings.
Once that obstacle disappeared, much of the supposed reluctance did too. Bhattacharya recalled the women embracing the assignments and enjoying the independence of living together away from their families.
The episode shifted her question from why employees wouldn’t do something to “what is holding them back.” Managers, she said, can too easily assume people are “taking an easy way out” without understanding the obstacle in their path.
Gen Z gets her vote
Then there is a generation frequently accused of wanting things too easily. Moving from SBI to Salesforce put Bhattacharya among a much younger workforce—and challenged the stereotype of Gen Z as entitled, impatient or unwilling to work hard.“I really believe that the concept is totally wrong,” she said. Young people are resilient, Bhattacharya said, but increasingly want something beyond a pay cheque: purpose. She pointed to Salesforce’s volunteering programmes and the enthusiasm with which younger employees participate in them as evidence of what motivates the generation.
A thread connects all three lessons. Bhattacharya’s career, she recalled, was itself built without certainty about where it would end.
“Nothing was guaranteed. Nothing was given.” She simply put “one foot before the other”, taking on each assignment before moving to the next.
Published on September 10, 2026
