Free Devil in Pinstripes by Ravi Subramanian Page B

collecting money from him was also his responsibility.
    The branch manager reported to a regional manager, who eventually reported to a branch network head, who in turn was answerable to Gowri. The branch managers by vitue of this chain of command took instructions from no one but Gowri. Such was Gowri’s control over the organisation.
    Gowri’s influence ran deep. The master politician, had his own network of informants and did not believe in relying only on his hierarchical control chain for information. The man had his methods. He had the knack to reach way down into the organisation, at times even down to the last level in the command chain. The network of informal ‘informants’ would feed back information about all the little but important details of whatever was going on in the company. Anything happening without his knowledge or consent would reach him in a matter of minutes. To him, loyalty and alignment mattered the most. He would dole out favours to anyone who was aligned to him – both visibly and in thought process. This also meant better increments, higher bonuses and even quicker promotions for those who towed his line.
    Why wouldn’t guys at the grass root fall for such benefits? Gowri exploited this weakness in the system and the people. Such was his influence that everything including HR, credit and even financial control was under his sphere of control.
    With that kind of power, it was but natural for anyone to resist the advances of an MNC bank. NYB taking charge would mean that all the adhocism in the running of the company would have to go. It could no longer be run as a small time mom and pop show. Everything would have to be accounted for and the central focus of power which rested with him till now was under a big time threat. The free run had to end. The company had to be now run in a manner which was explainable to compliance, human resources teams of NYB and everything was subject to an audit as per NYB policies, which were a lot more stringent as compared to NFS.
    While Gowri’s control was not something which could be called a compromise of integrity, it was surely not a transparent exercise of power either.
    Chanda joined NFS in this background. She had no idea what she was getting into. She joined them in August of 2001 as a product executive in their personal loans department.
    The first few days for Chanda were eventless.
    ‘Go read this and come,’ Gowri had said after giving her some product and process manuals to read. The stuff was enough to keep her busy for the next three days. She took those documents and just when she was ready to scoot to the safe realms of the desk allotted to her, Gowri called her back. ‘And Chanda, if you want to clarify any doubts about anything, just walk up to Sangeeta. Chanda remembered her. She was introduced to her some time back by HR as the head of the branch network for western India.
    As Chanda left Gowri’s cabin, she smiled at his secretary, who didn’t bother to respond. Though that was not what she expected, she just shrugged her shoulders and walked towards her cubicle. The secretary immediately dialled a number and picked up the phone, taking it off the speaker phone.
    ‘She’s left,’ she whispered into the phone, and hung up.
    Within seconds, Sangeeta was up outside Gowri’s room. As usual, the colours of her clothes were similar to Gowri’s. As soon as she entered the area outside Gowri’s Cabin, walking awkwardly in her two-inch long spikes . . . err . . . stilettos, she took off her NFS ID card from around her neck and simultaneously pulled out the ID card which had the name of the old company (the name of the company prior to being acquired by NYB and prior to it being rechristened NFS) and hung it around the shoulder. Using the old ID cards was prohibited. Everyone was formally told to use the new ID card, with the NFS branding and logo. Sangeeta too used the new ID card at all times, unless she was with Gowri. She knew