Meet the Couple Behind India's First Ever Brokerage Firm Devina Sharma and Shankar Sharma founded India's first ever brokerage firm, having a London Stock Exchange as well as Nasdaq membership
By Anindita Ganguly •
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How often do we hear success stories that deal with poles apart essentialities? Not many, right! Breaking the norm, Devina and Shankar founded India's first ever brokerage firm, having a London Stock Exchange as well as Nasdaq membership. "People criticized when we started working on this idea and were under confident about this. But eventually risking it off, we proved them wrong." The couple started their firm back in 1990.
First met in CitiBank in September 1989, both thought they aren't their types! "I remember, how I disliked Shankar! Gradually, things started changing," states the IIM gold medalist. They got married in March 1991 after having a brief affair. "We went to Udaipur and sparks flew during an offsite at Lake Palace. There I came to realise that he is not only a good conversationalist but also a good human being," shares Devina, stating how till date both of them chat off to bed despite being together the entire day at work.
Though both of them are completely different people in their professional and personal space, Devina explained their alignment of differences. "We are uniquely aligned. Both of us love reading but our genres are different," she explains cheerfully. With such equation they seamlessly iron out their professional and personal differences. "We simply talk it out! Whatever it is. We are best friends first!" exclaims Devina.
She adds how difficult it was to convince their families to accept International brokerage as their goal, she shares, "We belong to a time when brokerage as a field was looked down upon." Eventually during our courtship, Sekhar took a plunge and started building the venture quitting his job in CitiBank. Today, First Global is the leading international brokerage firm through Devina's refined research mind and Shankar's unvarnished market strategies
(This article was first published in the March issue of Entrepreneur Magazine. To subscribe, click here)
