General Motors, a renowned carmaker company has appointed 39-year-old Dhivya Suryadevara as its first female chief financial officer (CFO).
Education
She studied in St John’s Senior Secondary School in Mandaveli,Chennai. She later earned a degree from the Ethiraj College for Women in commerce and went on to pursue Chartered Accountancy at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
Suryadevara did her MBA from Harvard University and went on to get her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in commerce at the University of Madras.
Early Life
Following her father’s death when Suryadevara was young, she and her two sisters were raised by a single mother.
“My mom had to raise three children on her own, which is difficult to do anywhere, let alone in India. She wanted to make sure there were no corners cut when it came to our education and to prove that we could have the same resources as a two-parent household. Her high expectations made us want to do better, and we learned that nothing comes easy. You have to really work hard to get what you want.” said Suryadevara.
Career Beginning
She began her career at PricewaterhouseCoopers before moving to investment banking at UBS. At 25, she joined GM as a senior financial analyst at the treasurer’s office, and she’s been with the company ever since, eventually becoming one of the youngest chief investment officers of GM Asset Management.
