Our people
Shilpa Chandna is a Vice President in Macquarie’s Gurugram office. She joined in 2019 to build out an assurance function for the Risk Management Group. Since then, she’s experienced global opportunities and has championed learning and development for her peers in Asia.
Shilpa Chandna is Vice President in Macquarie’s Risk Management Group, and says she enjoys both the people and culture.
Macquarie has inclusive, engaged leaders who genuinely care, and that flows on to the quality of work and brilliance in the people, which are both real drawcards."
“Macquarie values an open, curious mindset and encourages questions and speaking your mind.”
“Plus, there’s a strong emphasis on team engagement and activities, so we also have a lot of fun.”
As a science graduate, Shilpa originally had her sights set on a career in medicine, before her brother - a Chartered Accountant - suggested she look to finance.
She took his advice and in 2009, began her career at a large accounting firm, where she spent a decade consulting on risk before looking for a new challenge. When she interviewed with Macquarie in 2019, she was immediately impressed by the career potential.
“I was inspired to join Macquarie by the opportunity to set up a new assurance function in the Risk Management Group,” she says.
“It’s been a challenging but interesting journey. Macquarie is a very dynamic organisation, which is constantly evolving.”
“Beyond simply providing Macquarie with an effective risk management function, working in risk and assurance gives you insights into how a business is run, and oversight of what is happening across the organisation,” Shilpa explains.
“You also get to see the process from start to finish and resolve issues when they arise, so you see the impact.”
Since joining Macquarie, Shilpa has built a team of 10 people in Operational Risk and Governance in India. The team partner with stakeholders across the business to look at how quickly and efficiently perceived risks can be identified and reported for action, while also building a picture of organisation-wide risk.
“Our work has evolved from small-level control testing to larger overviews of the process and capability to find risk that impacts the whole organisation,” she explains.
In her role, Shilpa is responsible for effective risk management assurance activities and capability reviews globally.
“My focus is on the strategic vision,” she says.
“We do risk-based assurance planning each year and review it quarterly, collaborating with other teams across the organisation. So, I do a lot of stakeholder management, to understand where their vision and process is, and identify problems or control gaps, as well as reviewing my team’s work.”
Shilpa also looks after continuous improvement for the division in Asia, finding ways to enhance work processes, from automation to dashboarding, reporting or removing redundant processes.
“We’re increasingly using automation and strategic, enhanced testing.”
Not long after joining Macquarie, Shilpa was invited to Sydney for several months, to act as an operational risk subject matter expert for a compliance project.
“It gave me a different perspective, working with consultants and Macquarie internally, as well as creating networks I still draw on today,” Shilpa says.
I liked that people were open to being challenged, and my input was genuinely appreciated even though I was quite new to the company.”
In addition to this global opportunity, she has also worked as a risk, controls and assurance subject matter expert on several other global integration and uplift projects.
In 2020, Shilpa was nominated for a mentoring, leadership and development program for high potential senior managers. Off the back of her final presentation on influencing stakeholders, she was asked to become a key contributor to the Asia and India learning and development initiatives, a role she now performs alongside her work in assurance.
“I look at training needs and help curate and run courses,” Shilpa says. “I hold regular sessions in areas specific to risk, but also run sessions in stakeholder management and influencing skills.”
“I’ve always had an interest in learning and development and enjoy sharing my experience.”
Shilpa also helped initiate a series called ‘Emerging Risk in India’, bringing together experts from across the globe to speak on current risk topics. She has been recognised with several awards, for her work in both the Risk Management Group and the learning and development space.
Beyond the informal support Shilpa receives from her leaders, she has a mentor who is not a direct manager, who she meets with monthly.
“We discuss a variety of topics and I get a different perspective about things like creating visibility, or growing my career,” Shilpa says. “I appreciate the fact that people at Macquarie are approachable and take the time to help.”
“I'm always engaged and learning something new at Macquarie.”
Ready to start your career with Macquarie?
Have a question about the recruitment process or working at Macquarie?
